Small loans, lasting change: how women are building resilience together in Sudan's White Nile State

In the early hours of the morning, before the sun has fully cleared the horizon and the heat begins to press down on the village, Hanan Mohammed moves quietly through her home. She checks her children's notebooks, straightens their uniforms and sends them out into the still-cool air toward school - a routine that once filled her with dread.

"Before, even small school costs felt impossible," she says. "I was always choosing between having enough food and sending my children to school."

Hanan lives in Mahada village in Al Jabalain, a stretch of White Nile State where conflict, displacement and economic strain have quietly reshaped everyday life. The roads are dusty, and the mornings are short before the heat settles in. Families long rooted in the area now live alongside those internally displaced by conflict, with many women struggling to find reliable ways to support their families.

Hanan relied for years on informal work, with little security when income became uncertain. That began to change when she joined a Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) supported through the UNHCR-Mastercard Foundation partnership, which helps displaced people and host communities build more stable livelihoods and pathways to self-reliance across Sudan.

Through the programme, a group of women received an initial sum of money and training in financial literacy, learning together how to manage a collective fund, decide on loans and plan repayments. Members can borrow from the fund when urgent needs arise or opportunities emerge, repaying them into the shared pot over time so others can access them too. In a place with few safety nets, managing money together becomes a practical and collective investment in stability, dignity, and the future.

Through the VSLA, Hanan took her first loan. It was not a large sum, but it arrived at the right moment, the way small things sometimes do when everything else feels out of reach. She used it to cover her children's school expenses, keeping them enrolled, and paying for their uniforms. "When my children go to school, I feel stronger," she says. "I look at them and I think we are not just surviving today – we are moving forward."

Then she took a second loan and gambled on herself.

With it, she bought a small stove, a handful of tea and coffee glasses and just enough supplies to start over. By the roadside, she built a humble stall from almost nothing. Now, each morning after her children leave for school, Hanan takes her place at the stall and strikes a flame. The stove comes alive. When a customer stops, she brews each cup to order - tea or coffee, hot and sweet, made freshly. What began as a loan has become livelihoods, one cup at a time. "The tea brings them, but the income feeds my family."

The earnings allow her to cover daily needs, repay her loan and keep saving, rebuilding, quietly and steadily, a sense of control she had lost. "Now I depend on my work," she says. "That makes a big difference."

Halima arrived in the village with almost nothing a few years ago. She had fled Khartoum when the conflict erupted in April 2023, joining the long lines of people streaming out of the capital, leaving behind her home, her belongings, and her dream to finish university.

"I didn't have anything anymore," she says. "These last years have been very difficult. It was not easy to find a way to earn something for me or for my family. This project came at the right time."

She joined the same savings group as Hanan and, despite her doubts, took out a loan and a chance on herself. With it, she rented a tiny shop and stocked it with what people needed most - clothes for women and children, accessories, beauty products, the everyday essentials that were rarely available nearby. Slowly, customers came. Then more came. Word spread. The shop outgrew what one person could manage, and she called on her brother to help her run it.

"It brought me joy and hope," she says.

What began as a cautious load had become a thriving enterprise and a source of income for more than one family

And then, quietly, something shifted. Standing behind the counter of a shop she had built from a single loan, in a town she had never planned to call home, Halima allowed herself to think again about the future she had packed away when she fled Khartoum. Business was going well. She could afford it now.

She asked her brother and sister-in-law to support her in running the shop, and she enrolled in a business administration degree at the University of Wad Madani, in Al Jazirah State.

"I had a dream to go back to university, but could not afford it," she says. "Now I can. I want a bigger business one day and I want to know how to run it properly."

Both women are part of the same VSLA, saving and borrowing from the same fund, making decisions together. White Nile State hosts over 480,000 internally displaced people, many of whom fled the ongoing war. As families continue to arrive, pressure on livelihoods, job opportunities and basic services has grown. By bringing displaced people and host communities together to build livelihoods, the VSLA helps build trust and social cohesion while reducing economic vulnerability.

"We sit together, we decide together," Hanan and Halima say. "When it comes to saving, we are the same."

Beyond the loans, the VSLA builds something harder to put a number on, confidence, financial literacy, the experience of managing money and planning ahead, often for the first time. Skills that outlast any single loan cycle, and that no conflict can take away.

Since the war erupted in April 2023, nearly 13 million people have been forced to flee, making Sudan the world's largest displacement crisis. Yet, amid the upheaval, stories of resilience are emerging. Through the UNHCR-Mastercard Foundation partnership, displaced families in White Nile State are not simply surviving – they are rebuilding. With access to livelihoods opportunities, they are restarting businesses, generating income, restoring dignity and laying the foundations for safer more secure future. What conflict tried to take away, they are determined to reclaim.