Walking out the door to the local market to fill up your cupboard with locally grown fruits and vegetables – don’t you wish you could pick up one of these beautiful, hand-made baskets for your market day?
The women at the Mumosho Women’s Center have begun to learn basket weaving. Depending on the size, they can sell these for 3, 5, 6, or 8 dollars. A bundle of the colorful cords that are woven into the patterns costs between $50 and $70, used to create approximately 12 large and 2 medium baskets, that sell at $8.00 USD and $5.00 USD, respectively.
Connect with the women in Congo — post a comment or tweet @ActionKivu with your words of support for the women in eastern Congo, weaving their way to empowerment through earning regular income, sending their children to school, and being the change we all want to see in Congo! We'll send your thoughts forward, where your words will be printed out and translated, posted in the women's center to encourage the women on their journeys.
To support the weaving women, consider a monthly donation! Every dollar makes a difference in the lives of the women learning to read & write, to sew, to weave, to farm.
“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”― Robert Louis StevensonThis spring, photographer Emma O'Brien traveled from South Africa to DR Congo. As part of of her Faces of Courage project, she visited Amani to document the work he's doing through ABFEK / Action Kivu for a beautiful book of stories and photos that will raise awareness, hope, and funds for the communities of eastern Congo.Emma reflects on the experience: "Being at the ABFEK Women's Centre in Mumosho to photograph the distribution of seeds to these ladies was an amazing experience. The seeds they were given not only represent a means to feed themselves and their families, they represent hope and give the women something to look forward to. It was also a very humbling experience to talk to the ladies and find out about their lives, many of them are caring for upwards of five children (one lady looks after 15!), so their lives really are tough, however they were so happy to have received their bundle of seeds and chatted excitedly the whole time we were there."It made me realise how easy it is to be able to reach out and help someone else and what an impact something as simple as a gift of some seeds can make. The ladies had quite a giggle at us, we asked them how to plant the seeds and one of the ladies looked quite quizzically at me and said, 'everyone should know how to farm.' I wonder what they would make of the world of convenience I live in."Amani is doing brilliant work at the women's centre to help empower these ladies by giving them purpose and financial independence, I am so proud to be able to use my skills as a photographer to support his work."
"Happy Mother's Day!" a man said to me as I passed his gate. Before thinking, I replied in instinctive, cultural politeness, "Happy Mother's Day to you, too!" Similar to when someone at an airline desk tells me to have a safe flight and I reply without thinking, "You too!" They nod, stuck behind the desk where they watch planes alight into the air, used to the auto-response. That Mother's Day, flustered, I apologized, then explained, "But I'm not a mother, either." "That's okay," he said, more thoughtful than I. "Aren't we all mothering someone, or something, in some way?"
"Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground." ~ Zora Neale Hurston
The concept of mother crosses cultures, languages, religions, eras. Mothers who, day in, day out, give encouragement, who hope for the best for those they love. Who give birth to creative ideas and see them through to completion.
The sewing workshops of Mumosho and Bukavu do just that; training young women in a marketable skill, the graduates of the programs go on earn income to support their families with food and education. When a mother is able to send her child to school, she helps break the cycle of poverty and gives hope, not only to her own daughter or son, but to a new generation, who sees an example of a mother making her own dreams come true.
This Mother's Day, give that gift of hope! We will give sewing kits to each of the 42 students graduating the sewing workshops this May, each costing $195 USD, including a pedal-powered Singer sewing machine ($150), and a tool box ($45) to start their own businesses: scissors, tape measure, oil, buttons, needle, thread, machine belts, fabric, lining, and more. When you donate on behalf of a mother in your life, we will send you a PDF to give to her/him, sharing a story of a recent graduate whose life has been transformed by the sewing education.
Visit our donation page, and be sure to denote "sewing kit" in the PayPal notes section when you donate. Any amount helps us start these women on the road to living their dream of supporting their families and inspiring a new generation through education!
Rosine meets with the sewing students at the Mumosho Women's Center, leaning over a shoulder to check one woman's work, eyeing the stiching of another's, offering encouragement and tips on creating gorgeous garments from a bolt of fabric, needles, thread, and a simple Singer sewing machine.
At 22, Rosine is as young as many of her students, teaching a marketable skill to teen mothers and other young women who could not afford school. Rosine had to drop out of elementary school in the sixth grade, her mother unable to pay for further education. Four years ago, desperate for a way to help her family, she found a job on a farm, growing beans for a small wage. Selling her harvest was just enough to pay someone to teach her to sew. Her hard work led to a position as a teacher at ABFEK's sewing workshop in the Mumosho Women's Center, supported by Action Kivu, which offers free classes to train women in eastern Congo to start their own businesses.
"By training the other women," Rosine says, "I am always thinking that the women and rest of the community will become able to take care of themselves, their families and why not the community."
Rosine learned about ABFEK's work from her brother, a student who is sent to school through Action Kivu/ABFEK's sponsorship. "I also know that ABFEK built the Mumosho Peace Market," a safe place for the community to gather to sell their fruits, vegetables, fish, and goods. After she attended last year's sewing graduation ceremony, she was interested in teaching at the workshop.
"Being a sewing trainer makes me happy," she says, taking a break from work. Rosine has seen the benefits of what she teaches directly, through her ability to help her family with her income, especially after her father passed away a year ago. "I help my mom to take care of the rest of my family. Whenever my mom is unable to buy food and I have some money out of my savings from sewing, I jump in and fix the issue. If one of my brothers needs to pay school fees, I am able to help from time to time."
When asked what their greatest needs are, and how the partners of Action Kivu might help, Rosine reminded us that they need support to make sure they have all they need to continue training the women, to ensure the sustainability of all the programs hosted by Action Kivu through ABFEK.
Rosine's story is just beginning, as she plans for her upcoming marriage, and worries about how to continue helping her mother and brothers, while she starts her own family. We work to surround Rosine, and all the women working and learning and living in the communities of eastern Congo, with support.
You can partner with the women and children of Congo by donating here! To start their business, sewing graduates are each given a sewing kit, including a pedal-powered machine, fabric, scissors, thread, and more, totaling $195 USD. (Action Kivu is a U.S. 501c3, and 100% of the funds go to the programs on the ground, minus nominal banking fees.)
It’s spring and Action Kivu’s programs in Congo are growing!
The new Mumosho Women’s Center is up and running, and offering a new outlook on life for the women taking part in the classes offered there. “What we like the best with this Center is that we are offered free trainings whereby we acquire skills, and the men who abused us are now going to respect us. Being here means no longer being worthless.” And from Amani: "Sewing, farming, literacy: the women are so proud they are able to write their names, read and write a few sentences!"
Writing practice in Action Kivu's Literacy Program. Photo courtesy Emma O'Brien - emmaobrien.com
But we can’t grow without you – and the best way for you to support the women and children in eastern Congo is with a monthly donation. Under Amani’s leadership, the community has so many ideas of how to learn and grow and thrive, but they need our support. With every dollar going to the work on the ground, your tax deductible donation of $10, $20, $50 … $100, $200 per month means that you’re investing in a better future for the people of eastern Congo.
Planting Seeds of Hope
What will your kids be doing to fill the lazy days of summer? The kids in ActionKivu’s Education Sponsorship Program in eastern Congo will be on vacation starting July 2nd to August 30, but have no camps to attend or pools to swim in. With your help, over 130 school kids who are able to get an education because of your partnership, will grow vegetables and flowers this summer, and the harvest will belong to the children. Planting seeds is in itself a symbol of hope – holding in your hand a small, shriveled brown seed that holds the possibility of life, of a flower to open slowly to the sun and add a bit of beauty to the day, of a ripe vegetable to bite into after tending the plant and watching it grow. In groups of 10 to 15, kids from different schools and different villages will form their own summer camp, where they will learn lessons of growing food as well as sharing stories and making new friends. Their camp counselor is a local woman who studied rural development and will guide the kids in agriculture lessons as they meet for lessons at the Mumosho Women’s Center, and grow their gardens three days a week.
The Community School Garden's seeds will cost $1350 for the whole summer, plus $200 / month for the supervisor’s salary, at three months, totaling $1950.00. The supervisor will start work in June, preparing the seed beds, from which the kids will transplant the seedlings to each community garden. The project gives them hope and a sense of responsibility and success, as they work together, investing in the future of their land, and contributing toward feeding themselves and their families.
Mumosho Women’s Center
With your help, we will reimburse the community who gave talent and materials to complete the new Mumosho Women’s Center. A beautiful, safe space that now houses Action Kivu’s multitude of programs, including literacy classes, job and skills training workshops like sewing, embroidery, soap-making and more, the center also provides a gathering place for the community to address social problems such as domestic violence or women’s rights. Empower Congo Women partnered with Amani to help build the center, and started a Teen Mother’s 12-month program, while Action Kivu is partnering with the newly formed Peace Exchange to start a Fair Trade program, where the top graduates of the sewing workshops will create fantastic products for you to purchase! The outstanding cost from finishing the Women’s Center remains at $8,200.00.
Mom and child - Mumosho. Photo courtesy Emma O'Brien - emmaobrien.com
It’s a very exciting season of growth, but we can’t do it without your partnership. We need to meet ongoing basic needs: to pay the program instructors, hire a program assistant, expand our education assistance so more girls go to school, and purchase kits for the graduates to can start their own small businesses. Visit "how you can help" and click on the drop down menu to choose a monthly donation amount here.
Giving shows the women and kids that their stories matter. Giving reminds us that we’re all connected, that what we do with our time and money impacts others, so we’re all sharing a better world.
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Please share with friends, colleagues, strangers, the woman on the subway platform! A great way to introduce our work is through introducing Amani via The Enough Project's beautiful video:
(Many thanks to Emma O'Brien for the use of her gorgeous photos from a recent trip to Mumosho with Amani!)
Happy International Women's Day! What are you doing to celebrate? To reflect? To give to continue the movement of equality and opportunity for the women and girls in your life?
Today is a great day to practice generosity, whether that's giving to support Action Kivu in our work sending girls to school and teaching women valuable life and job skills, or writing a note to encourage a woman you know.
The writer behind DailyOm shares about Giving with Joy, that "Today, courting happiness can be as easy as incorporating a philosophy of generosity into your existence.
"When we give others the gift of self-sufficiency by helping them prosper, we simultaneously give ourselves the joyous gift of knowing that we have contributed to the advancement of humanity as a whole. Our lives feel emptiest when we feel we have little to give the world in the way of charitable contributions. Yet by simply helping others whenever we can, we become part of something far larger than our individuality. Any isolation we might have felt disappears and is replaced by a wonderfully potent sense of personal satisfaction. Our efforts, no matter how small, remind us that we are, in fact, capable of making a difference using only the tools and resources we have in our possession. You will feel that your life is laden with gifts today when you share your abundance with all who are in need of aid or solace."
This past weekend in Ethiopia, a Peace Accord was signed to attempt to end decades of conflict in Congo. According to reports, despite this encouraging step, the accord does not specify enough detail or plan of action, and there are signs of a return to fighting between the Congolese government and the M23 rebels.
That same weekend, a celebration of peace was held in eastern Congo, as the Bukavu Rotary Club honored 108 years of the Rotary Foundation. Dr. Denis Mukwege, the main speaker at the event, is a hero of healing whose Panzi Hospital has served multitudes of women in the war-torn region. Mukwege only recently returned to Bukavu after an attempt on his life in October of 2012. Amani, a member of the Bukavu Rotary and friend of Dr. Mukwege, noted that the doctor is a great inspiration to him.
Mukwege addressed the Rotary gathering in light of their theme, "Peace and Global Understanding," and Peace through Service. "I was renewed by his moving speech," Amani wrote. "[It] gave me hope again in the fight to end war and poverty and injustice by not only empowering the most impoverished communities to help themselves here in the Eastern Congo, starting in Mumosho, but also making our voices heard to the international community and regional policy makers! I was encouraged when Dr Mukwege said: 'It's high time we stood up and fight corruption, impunity and injustice and no, no to the balkanization of Congo.'" Amani added, "Violence against women should stop once and for all!"
Dr. Mukwege addresses the Bukavu Rotary Club, Feb 2013.
The Rotary's celebration of peace started Friday in Mumosho, where Rotary leaders met with ABFEK / Action Kivu's hero of healing and peace, Amani Matabaro. In honor of the celebration, Amani opened the new Mumosho Women's Center. Still needing funds and work to be completed, Amani gave a tour of the center, which will house Empower Congo Women's teen-mother program, giving a year of safe shelter and skills-training to 10 young mothers, empowering them to provide for themselves and their children. The center will house Action Kivu's multiple projects, including our literacy programs, skills-training workshops, and a workspace for graduates of the sewing workshop. It will also serve as a community gathering place, hosting forums and trainings toward building peace in the family, in the community, and in Congo.
Amani explains how the Mumosho Women's Center will serve the community.
A leader of the Bukavu Rotary speaking at the Mumosho Women's Center.
A group of young mothers in Mumosho.
More to come on the opening of the Women's Center! If you'd like to partner with us in covering the costs of the construction, please note that in a donation. All donations go directly to the programs already running, but the need is great, and we're excited to grow with your partnership!
"When I think of the word "beauty," some of the faces of those that I love come into my mind. When I think of beauty I also think of beautiful landscapes that I know. Then I think of acts of such lovely kindness that have been done to me, by people that cared for me, in bleak unsheltered times or when I needed to be loved and minded. I also think of those unknown people who are the real heroes for me, who you never hear about, who hold out on lines — on frontiers of awful want and awful situations and manage somehow to go beyond the given impoverishments and offer gifts of possibility and imagination and seeing."
~John O'Donohue, from "The Inner Landscape of Beauty" (Listen to the full piece at On Being.)
"The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway; and asserting a right to predominate: to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last; yes, — and to speak." ~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
As we listened to Safi softly answer our questions in Swahili, I remembered how important it is, that moment you speak up, you find your voice, discover not only what you want to say, but what you need to say.
Safi, at the Bukavu Sewing Workshop
On our visit to Congo, we met more and more women in workshops and classes, in the fields and at their homes, and asked to hear their stories, not of rape or abuse, but of daily life, daily struggles, and hopes for the next day to come. We began to hear individual voices growing stronger in clarity and volume, and the shared voice of place, of community began to form a song.
Safi, 17 years old, had little to do before she discovered the Bukavu Sewing Workshop. Her father had abandoned her family, and she was too poor to have gone to school. Her face brightened as she shared with us how much she loves her mother, and likes to cook and help take care of her mom when she returns from her back-breaking work of transporting goods and wares across the nearby border to Rwanda.
When Safi discovered the Bukavu Sewing Workshop, she found a place where she could learn skills that will help her mother. Young and still shy with us, strangers to her, we saw how sharing her story made her stronger, and wanted to share it with you. When asked what she would tell you, partners of Action Kivu in the U.S. and around the world, she asked that God might pour blessings on you, and said, "We will never forget them in our lives."
A woman carrying a load of bricks, for which she will be paid approximately $1 USD for a day's work.
(Photo credits: 1. Safi sharing her story, photographed by Cate Haight, 2 & 3 Women working, photographed by Amani Matabaro)
