Experience report: Production of gym bags in the women's project in Tanzania

Sarah and I have been able to enjoy life in Tanzania for nine weeks so far. On July 31st we flew from Düsseldorf to Dar es Salaam. We spent three days there. After our luggage made the long way to Tanzania a while after us, we took the bus across this wonderful, adventurous country to our new home: Lukas and Flora's student house in Mtwara.

In addition to working on the “Placing Foster Families” project, which mainly involves finding foster families for orphans and supporting children from very poor families, Sarah and I were able to get to know a women’s aid project.

The Women Empowerment Project

The center's mission is to train girls and young women who have experienced various types of violence to become seamstresses. In this way, their independence and independence should be promoted. It also supports the education of girls and young women, advises them and protects them from further sexual attacks. It didn't take long before Sarah and I lost our hearts to these 18, some of them very shy, teenage girls.

In Tanzania, 2 out of 5 women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced physical violence at least once. One in ten women between the ages of 15 and 59 have been victims of sexual violence.*

Promoting sustainability through recycling

Even before the start of our trip, we had thought about the fact that we wanted to convey the idea of ​​sustainability to the children and young people with whom we would work. We knew from RGV team leader Lukas that he attached particular importance to the reuse of used and renewed raw materials when building the new Student House. Our goal was to create new art and objects with the girls using old things we would find together on the street. We wanted to raise awareness about recycling materials and promote environmental awareness. Once a week the girls came to us on the grounds of the Student House. Here Lukas had already started planting gardens and beds with them and teaching them a bit of farm work. The girls continued to complete a mosaic path with us, for which we used old tiles, broken pieces and bottle caps. On another day, for example, we made wind chimes out of broken bottles, which we sanded and decorated with wire.

The idea of ​​the cloth bag project

In connection with the idea of ​​sustainability, Sarah and I were already planning to sew fabric bags and shopping bags with the girls in Germany. Initially, our planning was just about showing the girls that they should use a reusable bag for shopping and not, as is common in Tanzania, with lots of easily torn plastic bags per purchase, which would later be found everywhere in the environment. To our great joy, we met Nadine and Eva in Mtwara, who had a similar idea and had already started sewing their first gym bags and shopping bags with the girls from the traditional kite fabrics that you can get at the market.

Finance and sale of gym bags

However, the longer we spent time in the women's aid project, the more we became aware of the great lack of financial resources to maintain the entire project and, above all, to procure exercise material for the girls. There was already a lot of hand-wringing among the other volunteers who also lived in the Student House for our gym bags. So we decided to distribute the bags to people on a larger scale in the hope of helping to further finance the project. We informed friends and acquaintances about the bags via a Facebook ad and received over 50 orders within two hours.

Sewing for your own independence - the major project of making bags could begin: We spent the remaining weeks of our time with the girls accepting orders from Germany, making bags and establishing contacts with local art shops that might also be buyers for the bags and bags in the future would be. While Sarah and I - now back in Germany - are now distributing the orders, thanks to Lukas and Flora we now also have our own small art shop that sells newly manufactured bags on the Student House premises. Meanwhile, Lucy, a new volunteer, is taking new orders and supporting the girls with organization and production.

Objectives of Culture Bag Manufacturing

The production and sale of our "Culture Bags," as we have now named them, is intended to enable the girls in the project to shape their own future. Through the production and proceeds of the bags, they have the opportunity to help finance their training themselves. The long-term goal of bag making is to give them an idea of ​​managing their own business and prepare them for self-employment as seamstresses.

We hope that the project will be able to finance itself in the long term through the bags and will no longer become dependent on further aid funds. This is precisely the problem with many aid projects. At some point the budget for donations and funding is used up and there is no long-term self-preservation strategy for the projects. At the same time, everyone working in and on this project must be aware that the bags are primarily intended to be practice pieces for training purposes and not mass production. The girls are at the center to learn, have fun and finally be able to be normal teenage girls who play football to their hearts' content, listen to music, dance, braid hair or rave about Justin Biber.

Bag full of love and life dreams

We often talked to the girls about their wishes and ideas for their future. Many people dream of being able to make great clothes as seamstresses. The production of the “Culture Bags” is not only the first step towards the goal of this dream for the girls. For Sarah and me, the “Culture Bags” also symbolize bags full of love and new dreams in life.

We were able to become part of a very warm community in Tanzania - we found new friends and another home. We are still in close contact with Lukas and Flora, are working on making the bag project bigger and are grateful for every additional helping hand with creative ideas.

Tutaonana mungo akipenda!

Best regards,
Your Solveig

A blog post by RGV Returnee Solveig, who together with her friend Sarah got involved in our project for traumatized girls in summer 2020.

*Source: africa.unwomen.org