Mary Wangui Mwangi (MW)
“The Enkiteng sewing program has helped me so much! I am now able to contribute to our children’s education, and we are able to buy food and clothes.”
~ Mary Wangui Mwangi
Mary Wangui Mwangi is one of the seamstresses in our Enkiteng Program in Nyeri. She joined in summer 2012 and started learning how to sew by making Enkiteng bags (cloth gift wrapping bags) using donated fabric. She has now graduated to making the Enkiteng bags out of Kitenge fabric, as well as new products such as Kitenge knapsacks, shopping bags, wrap-skirts and other products made of Kitenge.
Mary lives in Kamuyu village in Nyeri county, Kenya. She lives with her husband and their 3 children.
Since sewing with Seeds to Sew, she has been able to help her husband pay for their children’s school fees, improving the quality of their life overall. As Mary has been learning business skills through the Seeds to Sew program, she has slowly begun operating a tailoring business and has sewed uniforms for attendees of a local primary school. Through hard work and savings, she hopes to buy her family land a home so they can finally settle down in their own place.
When asked what would she like to change in her community, she said she would like to see young people staying away from drugs.
March 2021:
I joined Enkiteng program in 2012. My daughter was then in class 5, now she is in form 2 and I have been paying the school fees with the money I get from the program. I’m very thankful for the program.
My husband and I are separated for two years now and I am managing to buy food and pay school fees for my children.
Through the Enkiteng program I have been able to buy a Singer sewing machine. My skills have improved through the program, and last year (in 2020), I was chosen to be among women who participated in sewing Nyeri Country face masks and I received a good pay.
I hope and have a savings plan to buy my own land where I will build a house so I can stop paying house rent. I am very grateful to Seeds to Sew Enkiteng program and hope it will still help me achieve my plan.
I’m so happy to have learned to make new products such as wrap skirts, shopping bags, knapsacks, aprons and face masks.
