Women's Sewing Project in Kakuma Refugee Camp

This year the women sewing project was privileged to have visitor from African Greatlakes Peace Trust. The purpose of this visit was to make a follow-up to the sewing project to ascertain its impact in the lives of the beneficiary household and to fellowship with the women congregation in the camp.

We thank the department of refugee service (DRS) for allowing us to enter the refugee camp. The authorization was approved through a recommendation letter from The Director of Turkana Friends Mission  who are in charge of Kakuma Friends church.

During the visit, we had an opportunity to meet the leadership of the sewing school and students, despite the challenges of broken machines, limited school supplies, ballooning number of new students, tire and wear of sewing machines parts, unpaid teachers and dusty classroom. The school has tremendously trained tens of hundreds of students who have befitted from the program. Already new students have enrolled in this year class.

The school is looking forward to generate income through sewing new school unforms of different primary and secondary schools in camp starting this April. In our recommendation we are requesting you helps us spread the word about our work and continue to grow our community of supporters like you  to support the school with school supplies that include sewing machines spare parts, fabric for practices, needles and sewing threads, school uniform fabric, working table and supporting the two teachers.

             The Kakuma women refugee sewing project that was initiated 3years ago has for the first time allowed male students who would like to learn basic sewing skills enrolled in this year’s class, the move has come after men showed interests of joining the free classes, the volunteer teacher sighted reason of bringing in men as abroad move on inclusivity and empowering both genders. “Men are also very creative and innovative, we want to close the gap of previous challenges we have faced as women, when it comes to repair and servicing of our sewing machines, the new strength will play a key role in our project, we are hoping by the end of the training these men will be of great support”.

               For many years sewing in this context was perceived to be the work of women, we intent to break the barriers of male chauvinism. “We are joining men here and around the world to stamp out chauvinism, we are not ashamed by the stereotype created by perception that has classified and divided men and women when it comes to work, skills and responsibilities. As refugees we want to learn these skills so that we can support our families and nature our talent”

This year please remember to Donate to Transforming community for Social Change through GlobalGiving ORG#45981

We the women from the Kakuma refugee camp wish to sincerely thank all our partners and donors who have stood with us for the last three years, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for your unselfish contributions to our sewing project, your continues support has been the backbone of our dream in the lives of many women in the camp. Today more than one hundred and thirty two refuges have benefited from the project, we had a break due to the just concluded elections in Kenya, we are hoping to embarked in enrolling new students for our next class, having only 20 sewing machines shared by both students and experienced tailors for income generation it has been a challenge, we are hoping in the near future to secure more machines to enable students learn while experienced tailors to focus on our bigger dream of income generating to sustain our families. We are very blessed to have you and your family, thank you again for your generous support.  

We at Transforming Communities for Social Change would appreciate contributions to support the sewing project of women refugees in Kakuma refugee camp.

This year women in the camp would like to establish a centre that will help train women in both Kakuma refugee camp and Kalobeyei settlement scheme. A self-reliance model for refugees that was established by UNHCR, will be complimented with our tailoring project that is helping to create a self –reliance that meets the essential need in a sustainable manner that strengthens livelihoods and resilience which reduces dependence on humanitarian aid. Women are focused in expanding there tailoring experience they getting from the sewing project to uplift their livelihood in the camp. As an organization we are reaching out to our family and friends around the world to help their dream come true. We are hoping to achieve the social and ecominic ability of refugees in the longterm.

Happy new year to all that have stood with us since we wore that badge of being refugees. We wish to sincerely thank all who encouraged us to realize the strength, courage and victory that comes with that name.

You have put us closer to a world where every refugee has a safe place to live and is able to start anew, free from the threat of violence. The women remember the quotes you shared for every waking hour of the world refugee day. The twelve hours inspired us in a positive way.

 Our tailoring school at the camp is growing and with tremendous enrolment of new women from different nationalities. We have officially started talks with the camp manager to allocate us with a space to build a bigger school due to high demand.

 Currently the twenty sewing machines in our two training centres are not able to sustain the ballooning numbers of women who want to gain basic skills in sewing. Our two volunteer teachers have shown enthusiasm and zeal to help the refugees in the camp.

This year we have 4 South Sudanese 8 Congolese 2 Burundians and 1 Somali women who have started their six month training in Basic tailoring skills. We are looking for ways to sustain them putting in mind the students don’t pay to be trained. Our trainers depend on sales of new garments and repairing clothes. we truely hope this year will be an Industries year for refugee women.