Tawakkol Karman Foundation intervened to support a citizen from the city of Taiz (southwestern Yemen) in turning his Iraqi friend's idea, proposed to him 20 years ago, into a reality on the ground. The Iraqi friend presented his Yemeni friend, Hamoud Mohammed, with an idea to lift him out of poverty, which involved selling "balila," a dish they used to sell together in the Sala directorate of Taiz for several years. The Iraqi friend left Taiz and returned to his country in 2003 when the war broke out, leaving his friend Hamoud with a cart for selling "balila" and the secrets of its preparation. Years passed, and Hamoud remained attached to his Iraqi friend's cart until the war broke out in Taiz after the Houthi militia invaded the city, forcing him to flee with hundreds of residents. However, he decided to return only to find the cart had been turned into scrap by the war. Tawakkol Karman Foundation made the idea of the Iraqi friend a reality and gave Hamoud Mohammed a fresh start despite his age. The foundation renovated a small shop where Hamoud sells "balila" and provided him with the necessary tools for its preparation as an initial project. Subsequently, they purchased a locally known "tuktuk" cart for Hamoud to be able to move around and sell the dish he had mastered with the help of his Iraqi friend, from whom he had lost contact. This comes within the framework of the annual "Haith Al-Insan" program implemented by Tawakkol Karman Foundation, which includes 30 humanitarian projects in key development areas: education, healthcare, development, and economic empowerment, aimed at providing support and assistance to the populations most affected by the war in various Yemeni governorates.
