Food insecurity doesn’t have to do solely with access to food itself — sometimes, it’s caused by an unstable income. On our journey to promote stability, our next stop was to a collective of tailors to see what we could do to support them.
These tailors live in Rubondo and are distance away from many other income-generating activities, so instead of asking them to come to us, we came to them! And when we went, we brought sewing machines with us.
The center of this community was a neighborhood square, with children running around, elderly sitting in chairs, and calves and chicks wandering through picking at grass and lost seeds. In an unassuming building on the South side, we peeked our heads in to meet some of the women being trained in tailoring by the collective’s leader, Jean.
When we spoke with Jean, he told us the direct impact these sewing machines we brought would have: “We are using the machines to sell clothes such that the women can make enough money to meet their basic needs. We specifically train people who have been victims of gender-based violence or who are otherwise vulnerable. They’re even able to earn enough to get money to buy food and pay for their children’s school fees. And they even teach others to do tailoring.”
In other words, stability in one part of life often flows into other parts, too, which helps bolster prosperity and joy along the way!
