Mozambican Women
Extreme poverty is daunting, especially when it is so
widespread.
Mozambique is one of the poorest nations in the world as measured by the Human
Development Index, and one of the demographics that suffers the most is widows and single mothers.
35%
Single Mothers
90%
Low Education
88%
Unemployment
63%
Poverty
35% of Mozambican women are single mothers
90% of girls/women never even start high school
88% of women cannot find jobs with a living wage
63% of female-headed households below poverty line
We wanted to help, but... where to start?
Meet Luisa
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Luisa is a widow who used to struggle to survive; she regularly begged for
handouts, her ramshackle hut would flood with every rain, and she and her adopted daughter lived on
rotten vegetables that they scavenged from the mud in the market.
Luisa was just one of
millions of vulnerable women in similar situations.
In 2015, Nora Binda and Carla Reinagel teamed up to create a sewing school to
empower widows like Luisa.
Their goal was to find a permenent solution to lift these women
out of poverty and restore their ability to hope and dream for their own futures again.
The sewing school started small, meeting in the back of a church with seven
students sharing three borrowed machines.
Like most new students, Luisa struggled at first, but
gradually built both her skills and her confidence.
After producing enough items us to sell, Luisa was able to earn her own sewing
machine! She left the school with both the skills and the tools for a new life.
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Today we have empowered 80 women like Luisa to have a new start in
life!
Some people look at where the Restoring Hope school is today and think they could never
achieve what we have.
But we tell them all, do not dispise small beginnings. Start
somewhere.
Great things will follow.
