Empowerment
Empowering the Person
FEBA - KINSHASA
Monthly gatherings give women and girls the opportunity to share their stories, worship, and boldly envision an altered future for themselves and their communities. There are a variety of occasional workshops, depending on particular needs. These may include literacy, human and women's rights, practical advice on specific projects such as hygiene or reproductive health or care for their environment to prevent disease and promote sustainability. Sometimes the leaders create and act out short skits to dramatize issues and challenge the women to identify how they can help themselves. Participants are encouraged to discuss their views in small groups and share with the whole community.
CENEDI - UVIRA
The women of Munene and Kaboke, villages near Uvira, have suffered a great deal, but they have also claimed for themselves the space and time to celebrate their lives. International Women’s Day provides an opportunity for the women to demonstrate in a public way that they claim their rights as women and as human beings. When possible, they celebrate with marches, speeches and a meal. With the help of their American sisters, food and sometimes a new dress wrap can bring special tangible joy to the women of Uvira.
Economic Empowerment
FEBA - KINSHASA
When a woman has the means to support herself and her family, she not only has the dignity of a secure place in her community, she also has the means to educate her children. When she can save for a rainy day, she is not at the mercy of disaster.
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FEBA helps women and girls on the margins of society find ways to create a measure of economic security for themselves and their families, starting with where the women are and providing education, mentoring, and resources to become self-supporting.
Micro Savings and Microloans
Most Congolese women never have a bank account, but they can bring their tiny earnings ($1-$3) to the monthly gatherings of FEBA where each member can have her personal blue micro-savings book. There she can build up a little nest egg to start a small business or for an emergency.
Some women also benefit from a micro-loan program when funds are available. This was especially important after COVID destroyed the small businesses of many FEBA members. Before they receive their microloan, the women are trained in financial literacy and FEBA provides on-going mentoring.
Microloans enable women to start small businesses. Common choices are forms of "fast food" such as donuts or cassava fries, which women in the informal economy sell on the street. The most recent microloan project included training in new recipes as well as budgeting.
Tools and Follow-up for
Small Businesses
TOOLS: FEBA provides the graduates of its vocational programs, such as sewing or computer science or cosmetology, with some necessary tools to start their own small businesses using their education. (The sewing program has been active for many years, but the computer science and cosmetology programs only began in late 2023 and spring 2024 so there are not yet any graduates.)
Sewing machines are vital to strengthen graduates' independence. Students are taught how to care for the machines, and they are given clear instructions about keeping some of their profits to cover repairs and eventual replacement. Everyone knows that these are valuable machines and will be repossessed by FEBA if the new owners might be tempted to sell theirs ("use it or lose it”).
THEIR "SHOPS": Graduates pursue their profession in various contexts. Some work out of their homes. Some form a small group to work together, and may even set up in one of the big city markets. A few are able to create their own larger businesses; when they begin to be successful, they buy more machines and hire young women whom they also begin to train.
As is true of Congolese tailors generally, what FEBA graduates sew may vary. The key thing they are trained to make is new articles of clothing which customers or neighbors request. However, especially those who serve their poorer neighbors also do a lot of smaller projects, such as repairs on older clothing: a new zipper, alterations to a pair of pants, perhaps some new trim.
FOLLOW-UP. FEBA follows up with each graduate. Most of the young women continue to live in the Kinshasa area, though a few move to other big cities or even to other countries, in which case the contacts will be more limited. About 80% are active in their businesses; they all start out well enough but some do not continue over the years, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes health prevents working; at least one young graduate died suddenly only about two years after she graduated. Sometimes they may move on to another form of business; for example, if they do well and pay for further education, they may “change careers.” Sometimes they may not be wise about saving and find that they cannot replace their machines when they wear out. In some cases, machines have been washed away in floods, and it takes a long time for the tailor to be able to afford a new one (there is no flood or accident insurance).
Self-Support
The Farm
FEBA seeks to support its own ministry as much as possible. The two main projects are the farm and the shop. Agriculture and small animal husbandry aim to support's FEBA own food needs and sale of farm produce supplements income. The couture business makes good use of sewing products to help buy supplies for the school as well as advertise the lovely creations of its tailors.
Farming is the traditional mainstay of rural life, and it is traditionally women's work. For many years FEBA has had a farm out in the country, to feed its food insecure members, to sell produce in the metropolis of Kinshasa. The farm also serves the local rural economy by providing a welcome source of cash employment and demonstrating best agricultural practices.
FEBA's farm suffered greatly in the pre-election violence in 2023. Buildings were destroyed, equipment and crops stolen, fields burned, neighborhood deserted.
The farm is now being rebuilt. The land is being cleared again, the tractor has been brought out of hiding, and some fields (about 10% of the total 66 acres) were planted in September. Soon there will be new crops, duck-and-chicken houses can be rebuilt to welcome ducklings and chicks, and FEBA's farm will begin return to operation to support the ministry.
The farm is one of our major projects now. Please join us to rebuild!
Shop and Sales
Couture for Sale
FEBA produces fine clothing for various markets to support its educational programs, and meets community needs by making school uniforms. It rents a shop in one of the big city markets where it sells its own wares and imports. Why imports? As a very successful business woman when the economy was flourishing, Maman Monique learned that a sprinkling of goods from South Africa or China or Dubai can make all the difference in attracting clientele.
To support its ministries, FEBA has a tailoring business which employs a number of its graduates. These gifted seamstresses create all types of clothing for sale, while also serving as assistant teachers or mentors for the sewing classes. (They also make darling stuffed dolls, dressed in bright beauty!) Some of FEBA's own beautiful creations are available in Woman, Cradle of Abundance markets.
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School Uniforms and Their Fruits
Maman Monique knows how to weave together FEBA's production and its service. Schools require students to wear uniforms, so the early summer months are a major time for FEBA's tailor division to make many hundreds of white shirts and blouses and blue skirts and pants in all sizes. The FEBA flare for style always attracts buyers, both individuals and wholesale purchasers. The profits of this big effort are dedicated to providing school supplies for the poor children of FEBA. In early September each year FEBA gives out uniforms and supplies to 150-170 children.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
$25 for a hoe
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$50 for corn seed for 1 acre
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$75 for electricity for cyber cafe
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$100 for a manual sewing machine
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$150 for a microloan
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$200 for material to make 50 primary kids' uniforms
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$250 to rent a tractor for women's coop near Uvira
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$300 for financial literacy workshop
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Seeds,
Farm tools, Microloans,
Sewing machines,
Laptops,
Numbers/ Year
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~1 replacement laptop for cyber cafe
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~10 replacement hoes
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~20 new sewing machines
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~4 new laptops for computer science graduates (3-4 to a laptop)
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~25 new microloans​
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~200 pounds of seeds
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CENEDI - UVIRA
CENEDI partners in Uvira have developed both traditional and innovative forms of economic self-support. Some young secondary school graduates, like the Starfish, have started a small business, while others have become part time teachers. The village women near Uvira have developed a very successful cooperative farm, with a mill which enables them to contribute to serve their neighbors as well.
Starfish in Action
PEACE AMBASSADORS CENEDI has been instrumental in bringing a Quaker peace education program to Uvira. The program is for the larger community but especially focused on the primary schools. A number of the Starfish have been trained to be able to teach the principles to others, which they now do in local primary schools as part-time jobs.
CYBER CAFE A small beginning has been made in creating jobs for the Starfish program’s graduates and also providing services to the community. CENEDI and HAW funded a cyber café start-up by three Starfish. Café Etoiles de Mer has provided internet services, document translation and charging stations for the people of Uvira for over 7 years
Women's Farm and Mill
WOMEN’S FARM COOPERATIVE Traditionally, poor women must go a distance from home to make little fields in the neighboring forests. Since the Rwandan genocide spilled over into Congo, the guerrilla militias have infested the forests. Over 100 women from the small villages near Uvira where CENEDI partners live were raped and some were killed before Woman, Cradle of Abundance was able to purchase two pieces of property near the women's home in 2020. Now the women run their own farm as a cooperative, planting and harvesting in sight of their homes, in safety.
In 2021 a small flour mill and generator were donated to enable the women to grind their manioc and corn and offer this service to their neighbors.
CENEDI - GOMA
Women's Garden
The women of the households where the students of Community Charity School live have a difficult time feeding their families and the orphans whom they have generously taken in. So until further plans are made to build a new school building, Hands Across the Water has dedicated the land to making a garden to feed the children and their hosts.
Sewing Club Rafiki
Living in the midst of war can inspire creativity. Maman Anourite Shabani is a tailor and the wife of the principal of Community Charity School. Customers who can afford to buy new clothes are few while Goma is surrounded by guerilla militias, yet there is much need, since many refugees fled with only what they were wearing. The youth who graduate from CCS each year cannot afford to go to secondary school but need to learn a trade. So Maman Anourite has started Club Rafiki, to teach sewing to the refugees and youth. With her sewing machine and two more given by HAW, Club Rafiki can work in the CCS classrooms after school hours.
