Stories
October 28, 2026 • 3 min read
After conflict forced her to flee Akobo, South Sudan, Nyajuok Puol lost her business and income. Savings from her community group helped her rebuild after returning home. Today, she runs a restaurant, supports her three children and employs another woman.
In Akobo, South Sudan, recurrent conflict and economic instability disrupt livelihoods, leaving families struggling to maintain reliable incomes. GOAL with VSF and local partners, support community savings and loans groups that help members build savings, access small loans and develop business skills. For Nyajuok Puol, membership in one such group provided a financial resource that helped her restart her business after conflict forced her to flee her home.
Conflict Disrupts a Growing Business
Nyajuok Puol, 27, is a single mother of three living in Akobo, South Sudan. Before conflict interrupted her livelihood, she was building a business to support her family and pay for her children’s education.
After receiving training in financial planning and business management through the UK Aid-funded THRIVE project, Nyajuok joined 29 other women to establish Goa-Ni-Mal, a community savings group. The members pooled their savings to start producing and selling liquid soap. Regular contributions and access to small loans enabled members to invest in their individual businesses and meet household expenses.
Nyajuok borrowed from the group to expand her tea stall, pay her children’s school fees and sell clothing brought from Juba. These activities helped her diversify her income and provide for her family.
Her progress was interrupted when violence erupted in Akobo. Families fled across the border to Tiergol, Ethiopia, leaving behind belongings and livelihoods. The group’s soap-making enterprise stopped after its raw materials were abandoned, while weekly savings meetings were suspended as members prioritised their families’ safety.
Savings Help Her Start Again
When relative stability returned to Akobo, 19 members of Goa-Ni-Mal returned home, including Nyajuok. She had lost most of her belongings during displacement, but the savings she had accumulated through the group gave her a starting point to rebuild.
“I was affected by the conflict, displaced, and lost most of my belongings, but I was not broken,” Nyajuok says. “Those savings helped many of us rebuild our lives after the conflict.”
She used her accumulated savings to reopen her tea stall and gradually expand it into a small restaurant. The group also resumed its weekly meetings, allowing members to continue saving together and discuss plans to restore their soap-making activities.
For Nyajuok, reopening her business meant regaining an income to support her children. Returning group members also began resuming their trading activities, although their progress varied.
A Business Supporting Her Family and Another Woman
Today, Nyajuok’s restaurant provides an income to feed her family and support her children’s education. She has also hired another local woman to help run the kitchen, creating an employment opportunity within the community.
However, running the business remains challenging. Customers have limited money to spend, while high transport costs and local permit fees reduce her earnings. These pressures make it difficult to grow the restaurant, but Nyajuok remains determined to continue.
“Sometimes the costs make you feel like closing the business, but I will not give up. I want to continue growing my business and participating in the VSLA. I have been divorced for two years, and my goal is to keep moving forward so I can support my children’s education and build a better future for them,” Nyajuok says.
For Nyajuok, the savings she built before displacement became a practical resource for rebuilding her livelihood after returning home. Her restaurant now supports her family and provides work for another woman, although the rising costs of running the business continue to threaten her progress.
Community savings and loans groups cannot prevent conflict or remove every financial barrier, but they can give members resources to draw on when livelihoods are disrupted. For Nyajuok, those savings helped turn her return to Akobo into an opportunity to start again.
