With our new manager, Alexander Gumoshabe, MEP looks forward to advancing the basket-weaving skills of the village women. To date there has been two week-long training sessions with trainers from outside the village to teach the women new methods of weaving as well as gathering and dying the natural materials.  We have new relationships with basket distributors which has expanded the sales beyond our church gift fairs. Through the sales of the MEP handcrafts, the women are able to be paid a fair wage and ACT receives sufficient revenue to support all the programs for the villages.

During the mission team visit, the women learned the concept of quilting. The women in the villages will be sewing colorful blocks of African fabrics which will then be completed into quilted items by the Midland-based sewing group. We are all excited about this “bega hibega” (Rukiga for shoulder-to-shoulder) project where the two groups of women in Michigan and Muko are dependent upon the other!

 (Posted 31 Aug 2010)