Class at session.
About The Umoja Sewing School
Umoja means "Solidarity" in Swahili and it was out of solidarity
that a group of women in Lawate, Tanzania came together four years ago with
plans to build a sewing school in their community. They saw the need to
provide young adults with a marketable skill and to teach them to help themselves
and their parents. Umoja Women's Group purchased a piece of land and began
cultivating corn to raise money. Soon the Umoja Sewing School opened in
a one-room schoolhouse. It is now in its third year.
Class at session.
The Umoja Women's Group is assisted in their planning and budgeting by
a roving Project Advisor for TechnoServe. The one I met is named Goodluck
E. Makundi. He meets every one to two weeks with the officer's group to
discuss the school, fund-raising, and bookkeeping. TechnoServe is committed
to helping community groups develop their potential, but also keeps the
groups' expectations realistic.
Although the Umoja Sewing School is located in the Kilimanjaro region, students
between the ages of 14 and 18 come from many different regions to learn
sewing, embroidery, and bookkeeping skills. Usually they stay with family
or friends, helping with housework to earn their keep while they attend
school. When they have completed the two year program and passed a national
exam, they can work as tailors in markets and shops or perhaps open their
own business.
Currently twenty-one students plus instructors use the school room and the
six sewing machines available. There are neither enough stools nor equipment
for everyone to use at once. Realizing the need for more room, the Umoja
Women's group began construction of a new school building next to the old
schoolhouse. They hope to complete it this year and acquire materials to
facilitate lessons. Unfortunately, a lack of funds makes this goal seem
unrealistic at this point.
The school building.
The lack of funding, materials, and space has another drawback. The government
has not yet certified the school to give the national exam upon completion
of the two-year program. After attending classes at the school five days
a week, six hours a day, the students must make a costly and time consuming
trip to another town to take their exams. The government refuses to certify
the school until it meets certain standards regarding ratio of students
to equipment and space requirements, all of which is virtually impossible
without outside help.
To complete the building and furnish it with the needed equipment, the Umoja
Sewing School requires a one-time donation of approximately $3,000. This
funding would allow the school to purchase sewing machines, a much needed
embroidery machine, and finish construction as soon as the end of this year.
The images of sewing building.
About Lawate
Lawate is a relatively new community of approximately 4,500 inhabitants.
The largest village nearby is Sanya Juu, about fifteen minutes up the road.
Lawate is located about twenty minutes north of the main road running between
Arusha and Moshi (see map in Tanzania section).
Both communities are in the Kilimanjaro region and offer fantastic views
of the mountain in the distance.
The region is predominantly agricultural, although Moshi thrives on tourism
and many tour operators organize expeditions to climb the mountain from
here. The main crops are coffee, corn, sunflowers (used to make oil), and
beans.
Most people in the area seemed to live off of subsistence farming, selling
their extra crops at the local market. If people can afford it, they have
livestock: chickens, cows, and goats that provide eggs, milk, and meat for
the daily diet. The local market on Thursdays and Mondays is a colorful
event filled with local people selling every item imaginable and Masai who
have come with their donkeys to buy provisions.
Eating Ugali...
Food consists mainly of corn, beans, and potatoes in a delicious variety
of dishes. Cooking is done over a fire outside or in a shed, with the cooking
pot balanced on three cinderblocks. Water must be brought from the nearest
pump and is stored in large oil drums. It is, of course, unsafe to drink
unboiled water.
Houses are constructed either of cinderblock or of woven wood and mud. If
the people can afford it, other buildings in which to house the livestock
and to cook are built around a small courtyard.
The main form of transportation to and from other parts of the region is
the matatu, usually a mini-bus filled to overflowing with people and their
possessions on the way to another town for the day. The road is bumpy, but
paved. Within the community most people walk, but there are also bicycles
and wooden carts to help move large objects or the day's harvest.
Images from the town are easy to capture, what is more difficult is the
spirit of the people. Everyone I met in Lawate was friendly to me, genuinely
interested in getting to know me, and had a wonderfully relaxed attitude
about the difficulties of life. They seemed to always focus on the positive
and ignore the negative. Laughing and talking to the neighbor was more important
than rushing anywhere, and as strange as I may have seemed to some of them,
I was always told, "Karibu" -- welcome.
In Tanzania, people make do with what they have, and share it with their
friends and family. When they are done with it, they use it again. Oil tins
become dust shovels, banana leaves that sheltered the harvested beans from
the rains get dried and become ropes, an old newspaper lives through reincarnations
as butcher shop wrapping paper, potholders, and "plates" for street
barbecues -- as well as a few others, I am sure.
Addresses for Umoja Sewing School:
The secretary, Umoja Women's Group
Mrs. Elishiisa E. Mmari
P.O. Box 103
Sanya Juu, TANZANIA
TechnoServe Project Advisor to the Umoja School:
Goodluck E. Makundi
P.O. Box 2117
Arusha, TANZANIA
Work Phone: (255)(57)-6718
Potential Rotary contact in Arusha (approximately 1 1/2 hours from Lawate):
A.H. Somji
MMT Pharmaceuticals
P.O. Box 7171
Arusha, TANZANIA
Work Phone: (255)(57)-7184
Home Phone: (255)(57)-3894
Fax : (255)(57)-8204
Contacts in Eugene:
Natanya Myers
3470 View Lane
Eugene, OR 97405-2314
Home Phone: (541) 344-6483
Cleven Mmari
2134 W 16th Ave
Eugene, OR 97402
Home Phone: (541) 343-2835
Tanzania in relation to the world.
(Information taken from www.africaonline)
natanya