Sister to Sister Sewing Cooperative
The Sister to Sister project
is an initiative to establish a sewing cooperative in the town of Sake in the North Kivu region of the Congo to help women who have been tortured and raped to re-integrate into society. Through sewing the women can earn money and regain a place in the
local society that had rejected them because of their suffering.
The Town of Sake
The initiative is led by Kelley Beeston who, with the personal support of Carolena Nericcio-Bohlman is reaching out to the world-wide ATS® dance community to ask for the finance needed to make the initiative a reality. The sewing workshop will enable the
women to earn money and regain a place in the local society that had rejected them because of their suffering.
We will be working with a very brave and courageous young man called Arnold Djuma who has worked in this area for 10 years with various human rights organisations before setting up his own local Congolese NGO called CVDP (Coalition
of Volunteers for Peace and Development). CVPD works closely with Amnesty International, its primary concern being for all oppressed Congolese peoples, particularly women and children (including the Pygmies) who have suffered torture, slavery and abuse.
Life in Sake is hard and plagued by insecurity
At present CVPD has acquired enough sewing machines to run a 6 month training course for 20 women in Sake. The graduates from this course will be offered work in the sewing workshop in the centre of Sake.
Sake is at a strategic crossroads and in the last two decades the town’s people have suffered from war, sexual violence and the oppression of several militias including M23.
UN soldiers patrol the streets of Sake
CVPD are able to help with legal support and referrals to psychology and health experts but they can not provide a permanent form of financial support to give a means for survival.
This is where we can help with financial support to establish the workshop. We are able to offer more than finance because we have a partner in the region called Ensemble Pour la Difference whose mission is to help people in Eastern Congo to build sustainable
businesses not only for themselves but for their communities because they know that the way to lasting peace is through stability where people can earn a decent living.
Ensemble will be working with CVPD to provide mentoring, support and tools to build the workshop into a business. Money after all is a tool and we want to make sure it is working hard.
Here are some examples of Ensemble's work in the region -
French version. English version is on Luminosity website
CPNCK – coffee co-operative
Coffee from all around the Congolese shore of Lake Kivu is smuggled to Rwanda on the opposite shore where it is bought at discount prices. This is the situation for 100% of the coffee grown on the island of Idjwi. Storms on the lake sink the boats laden
with beans and hundreds of Idjwi coffee farmers have died. Those farmers who make it to Rwandan shores are often attacked and some are killed. There are more than 1000 coffee widows on the island. Working with our partner Falling Whistles we have successfully
exported three shipping containers of coffee beans to the USA and are working on our fourth.
Liaison Congo internet café
Innocent Misabiro was already running Liaison Congo installing v-sat internet access into NGO offices. He had built a technically capable team and a good track record. In Kivu this is not easy. People study computing at university without ever using a computer
or seeing a router. Hands-on experience let alone expertise is not commonplace.
Innocent talked about his dream to expand the work of Liaison Congo and bring the benefits of the web to everyone in Bukavu. Piece by piece a plan emerged to adapt his capabilities and start an internet café. Innocent insisted it must solve the twin problems
of electricity cuts and slow modems and that it must offer people useful training in how to use a computer and how to use the internet. Our second internet café is almost ready to launch
Mumosho Women’s Community Cantine - is a grassroots business run by local women with financial support from Luminosity and technical support from Ensemble Pour la Difference in partnership with Action for the Welfare of Women and Children
in the Kivus (ABFEK). It is an everyday business activity that provides community members with many of the basic products such as corn and wheat flour, sugar, cooking oil and rice.
The Cantine allows community members to easily access products at a fair rate and they no longer have to spend time, money and energy walking 25 kilometres to buy the products in Bukavu. The project started in early May 2014 and the combination of financial
support and capacity-building has made the project a successful model of a community based business run by women.
Brick making in Mumosho - Currently there is a building boom taking place in Bukavu and demand for bricks is high. It’s hard work mostly done by tough, wiry men. Mwavita Cimwenya is equally as tough. She and three other women – Tulinabo,
Stella and Mapendo - came to us with a plan to buy a plot of land out in the marsh and make bricks. They have been so successful that they now hire three men to help with the workload.
Bweremana community projects – women’s groups in action - we started a program with five businesses in Bweremana including a shop selling cloth and another selling flour. Each business is run by a group of women who have collectively identified
a need in the community and organised them-selves to meet that need.
Sister to Sister Sewing Project needs-
In order to establish a sewing cooperative in Mesisi region of the Congo, we need to purchase supplies, rent space and hire staff. Your support can help disenfranchised women build a new life.
Your donation of:
*** $10 - will buy scissors OR 30 assorted zips OR assorted haberdashery eg buttons, threads, elastic, needles, pins, tissue for pattern making, tape measures OR an iron
*** $25 - will buy a full length mirror OR roll of cloth eg muslin, poplin, cotton OR 2 chairs
*** $50 - will pay for one months salary for night security guard OR one months rent of workshop space OR a work bench OR button and button hole machine
*** $75 - will buy a hand operated sewing machine
*** $100 - will pay for 1 months salary for skilled tailor/seamstress to oversee the graduates and run the project OR a foot pedal operated sewing machine OR a zig zag machine
*** $250 - will provide 5 months rent of workshop space OR 2 sewing machines and workbench
*** $500 - will provide 5 months salary for skilled tailor/seamstress to oversee the graduates and run the project OR an embroidery machine OR a diesel run generator
The Congolese are very resourceful people and when we reach our tipping point, we’ll be able to get the workshop up and running. However reaching our total funding goal means that we can keep it going for a whole year which gives the women time. Time to
practise what they have learned, time for further training and time to win sewing orders. In other words time to make the whole project sustainable and given time they will create more opportunities for even more women.
