Gym bags sew in the Women Empowerment project in Tanzania

Even before the start of our trip, we had considered 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 when building the new student house, he placed particular value on the reuse of used and renewed raw materials. Our goal was to work with the girls to create new artworks and commodities using old things we would find together on the street. In doing so, we wanted to sensitize them to the recycling of materials and promote their environmental awareness. Once a week the girls came to the Student House grounds. 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, fragments of broken glass and bottle caps. For example, another day we made wind chimes out of broken bottles, which we cut and decorated with wire.

In connection with the idea of ​​sustainability, Sarah and I were already planning in Germany to sew fabric bags and shopping bags with the girls. At first, we were only planning to show the girls that you should use a reusable bag for shopping and not, as is common in Tanzania, many easily tearable 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 the girls' first gym bags and shopping bags from the traditional kite fabrics that you can get on the market.

However, the longer we spent time in the women's aid project, the more aware we became of the lack of financial means to maintain the entire project and, above all, to procure training material for the girls. Among the other volunteers who also lived in the student house, there was already a lot of hand-wringing for our gym bags. So we decided to get the bags out to the people on a larger scale in the hope of contributing to the further financing of 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 large-scale 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, which might also in the future be buyers for the bags and bags would be. While Sarah and I - meanwhile back in Germany - are now distributing the orders, thanks to Lukas and Flora there is now also a small art shop that sells newly made bags on the premises of the Student House. Meanwhile, Lucy, a new volunteer, is taking new orders and helping the girls organize and make them.

The production and sale of our "Culture Bags", as we have now christened them, is intended to enable the girls in the project to shape their own future. Through the production and the proceeds from 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 preparing them for self-employment as seamstresses.

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

We often spoke to the girls about their wishes and ideas about their future. Many dream of one day 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 too, the “Culture Bags” symbolize bags full of love and new life dreams.

We were allowed 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!