Weaving the Future project kicks off

This week finally kicks off our Weaving the future project, which aims to provide women from rural villages in which we work with training courses both about weaving and colouring of vegetable fibres and women’s empowerment.

The project, partially funded with the support of Canton of Ticino and city of Lugano, obtained through FOSIT, was created to provide a useful tool to improve women’s economic conditions in the first place, of the family and of the whole community. At the end of the courses, products made of vegetable fibres will be used for local purposes and purchased by Children of Africa, which will be responsible for the sale through Emèl channels.

The initiation of Weaving the Future should have been last year, we had already set the dates and collected the registrations, but the pandemic forced us to postpone everything… therefore there is a particular happiness and enthusiasm into this new beginning.
On Wednesday Jane and Venesa held the first training meeting in Majoreni dedicated to Health and Hygiene, in which 37 women and 17 children took part: it is really a great success!
Several issues have been addressed, such as germ transmission modes and good domestic practices to prevent them, how to handwash, sanitize and store water and food, why is it so important to have access to a latrine, sleep with a mosquito net and let animals living in a place of their own.

We had a closer look at challenges affecting the local population (particularly children), like malaria and bilharzia (schistosomiasis).
We explained how to prepare washing powder and then all participants were awarded with the soap produced during the training. Jane and Venesa also provided information on how to prevent COVID infection and then gave everyone masks.
Training courses will continue in Mwamose, Jaribuni and Makombeni in the coming weeks.

Translated by Aurora Marchetti