On Monday, we visited a project north of Mombasa called Tewa (pronounced Tay-Wa) – on the coast between Mtwapa and Kikambala. The project was established by a very impressive woman – Veronica Too (who happens to have a rather famous daughter in the model and interior designer Emma Too), who is also a member of the board of Camara Kenya.
The project currently houses 31 women from very disadvantaged, rural communities. These women more of less live on the margins of society, with low levels of education, extremely low incomes, and often live in households where alcoholism or abuse are present.
All of these women come to the Tewa project for a couple of months at a time, where they learn cooking skills, household skills, subsistence farming, sewing and serving (waitressing). The idea is that these skills enable them to access employment much more easily, but also to run their own households in a healthier, cheaper way.
The project was largely funded by the Roman Catholic church. There seems to be a little confusion about which organ of the church the funding was drawn from, but the results are impressive nonetheless. The lodgings and facilities are genuinely top-notch – from a state of the art kitchen, to spacious comfortable classrooms, a top-quality IT room and comfortable, beautiful fittings throughout the building. It’s also completely secure, which is vital for these women to be given the space to learn and develop.
After visiting the project, we popped in to Veronica’s house (next door) to talk to her about the work. She first envisaged the project about 17 years ago, when a local woman came to her to complain that her 9 year old daughter had been sold by her husband. The man the girl was sold to was an elderly man, who already had 4 wives, and Veronica went to help get the daughter back. The only way this could be done safely, was to ship mother and daughter away to a town 150 miles away, where they could start a new life. Since then, Veronica has been dreaming, planning, funding and overseeing the development of the Tewa project, which finally opened it’s doors this year.
Hopefully, Camara will be building a stronger relationship with Tewa in the future, helping build the ICT education of the women involved. In the meantime, we left Tewa feeling inspired by the ability of a single person to effect such change.
Omg, sounds quite terrible. Selling children? wasn’t aware that I am actually living in a bubble.
Veronika sounds inspiring indeed.
Amazingly, in just 2 days, that’s the second story we’ve heard of children being sold. Really shocking stuff altogether.
[...] first road trip 28 07 2010 With the exception of the visit to the Tewa Project on Monday, we’ve been in Mombasa since arriving on Sunday. Tomorrow, that will [...]
[...] meantime, we only have five days left here in Mombasa, and we’re hoping to get back out to the Tewa Project, as well as visiting Fort Jesus and trying to see some work that’s being done with women in [...]