In Kismayo, Somalia, we met a remarkable woman. Her name is Sacdiyo, and she runs a center where she teaches young women in Kismayo to tailor and tie dye. Many of them are returned refugees, coming home after decades away. She knows the power of a useful skill and trade, and she’s sharing that power with her neighbors.
ARC and Sacdiyo have worked together before – to build a training center called Wadajir – which means ‘togetherness.’ The women she trains offer services to the community – the demand for tailoring services is high. But Sacdiyo didn’t have enough equipment to keep up with the demand.
So our team had an idea – let’s get them the tools they need to do their jobs.
With a new sewing machine, Sacdyio and the women who work with her are able to produce more, earn more, and save more. They might even save enough to buy more machines, bring more women on.
Sacdiyo is a woman who blazes her own trail. Who takes people with her and raises them up, too. It’s a simple move forward, but this machine represents so much – it represents progress, one step at a time. Slowly but surely, this is how real change is made.
