Resilience in Exile: Stories of Refugee Women in Senegal and the Gambia

In Senegal and The Gambia, stories of resilience, determination, and hope unfold every day. Women who once had stable lives were forced to flee their homes due to conflict, instability, and persecution. Yet, in the face of adversity, they have rebuilt their lives, time and time again. This is the story of Jeanne Francoisse Dam, Sophie Lokuly Ikae, Adama Jarjue, Fatou Badjie, and Fatim Tchagole—women who refused to let displacement define them.

Since 2016, refugee women in Senegal have come together under the Association des Femmes Refugiées et Demanderesses d’Asile au Sénégal (AFREDAS) to empower themselves economically. Jeanne Francoisse Dam, originally from Chad, is at the forefront of this movement. Now 38, Jeanne is the president of AFREDAS, but her journey to leadership was anything but easy.

She fled Chad at 21, a fresh graduate with a diploma in Electrical Engineering from Lycée Technique Industriel de Ndjamena. In her male-dominated classroom, she was one of only three women. “I always felt equal to everyone, at the same level with my male classmates,” she recalls. But equality was not something the system was ready to grant her. A faculty member made unwanted advances toward her, and when she refused, she was singled out—excluded from class without reason, restricted in what she could wear, even in how she styled her hair. Still, she graduated in 2007.

War forced her to flee to Cameroon’s Maltam refugee camp, where food was scarce, the heat unbearable, and access to information nearly nonexistent. Eventually, in 2012 she made her way to Senegal, where integration proved difficult due to the language barrier. To survive, she sold bread, peanut butter, and sugar.

Then she found AFREDAS. The organization provided her with training, Women- awareness programs, and empowerment projects. She thrived, and in 2024, she was elected president. Under her leadership, AFREDAS has organized courses in herbal soap making, pastry making, laundry services, and agriculture. The most recent three-day soap-making workshop trained 12 women, including Sophie Lokuly Ikae from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sophie has always been an entrepreneur, working as a housekeeper and hairdresser before selling print fabrics. The soap-making skills she learned allow her to earn supplementary income. “It helps me meet my children’s needs and pay for the items I purchase on a day-to-day basis,” she says.

Jeanne’s dream is to turn AFREDAS into a sustainable economic force. She envisions AFREDAS COSMETICS, a steady production line for the soaps, and AFREDAS FOODS, which will market products from agricultural and livestock projects. “With enough financial support, we can create jobs for refugee women and reinvest the earnings to train even more women,” she says.

Rebuilding from nothing in the Gambia

In the Gambia, another set of refugee women is rewriting their destinies. Adama Jarjue, 35, originally from Casamance, Senegal has created a monopoly in her community—the only seller of ready-made millet porridge, known locally as “coos.” She started her business with a D10,000 (approx. USD140) cash grant from The Gambia’s UNHCR partner, GAFNA. Before the assistance, she described her situation as “extreme poverty.” She had no stable shelter, no certainty about her next meal. Now, stationed outside the district hospital each morning and evening, she prepares and sells porridge. “My family conditions have changed drastically,” she says. “I can provide myself most of the things I need such as soap, school lunch for my children, and monthly contributions to the village women’s savings and credit group… It has made a lot of difference because I can now get myself a lot of things which I couldn’t do before.”

Fatou Badjie, originally also from Casamance, fled with her family in 2011. She had been a rice farmer, growing enough to sustain her household and save money. But war forced her to leave everything behind. Two years after her escape, her husband’s health deteriorated, and her children’s needs grew. She started selling retail snacks and household items to supplement donor aid. When she received a D25,000 (approx. USD350) grant, she expanded her business. “Now, I can meet my family’s needs, and my children can access decent education,” she says. “Men in my area have been able to scale their businesses into big canteens in urban settings. I know I can do the same if I get the right financial support and training.”

For Fatim Tchagole, a refugee from Togo, survival meant reinventing herself. A trained nurse, she lost her certificates during the war and was forced to take a low-paying job in The Gambia. “I tried working as a nurse, but they were paying me very little compared to everybody else because I could not present my certificates,” she explains. Frustrated, she left nursing and started selling vegetables and fruits. With D51,000 in cash assistance, she expanded her business. “A lot is different because I can provide myself with almost all that I need from it… The situation in my family is better than before because I can support my husband now. Therefore, we don’t lack much anymore.”

From Senegal to the Gambia, these women are proving that refugee status does not equate to helplessness. Whether through entrepreneurship, training programs, or sheer determination, they are forging paths of self-sufficiency and success.

This story was originally published by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.