Meet Us

Mapendo
is 18 years old. When she was 12 years old she fell and broke her leg. Her family lived in a rural area and was unable to take her to a hospital. The leg was never set properly and three years later Mapendo arrived in Goma to seek treatment at the handicapped center. After an intensive operation, the leg was reset and Mapendo now walks with the aid of a brace and crutches. At the time of her accident Mapendo was forced to leave school and has been unable to return, however at the handicapped center she was able to learn to sew. She lives with ARgentine, two young handicapped women fully supporting themselves through their sewing, an extremely unusual situation in Africa. Her family has home in a rural village was destoryed by the war and they are currently living in a refugee camp near Goma. Mapendo, whose name means love, is using her SHONA income to rebuild her mother's house in the village so that her family can leave the refugee camp.

Riziki
grew up in a rural village and became handicapped from childhood polio. She was eventually treated at the Handicapped center, and has since learned to walk again with the help of metal leg braces and crutches. Riziki joined SHONA as an intern in June 2009 and has now become a full-time craftsperson, although she is still being mentored by Argentine. She is a gentle and timid young woman but is growing in confidence daily. Through her SHONA earnings she is now able to provide for herself for the first time in her life. In a beautiful picture of empowerment, She is also providing for Zawadi, her younger sister. Zawadi spent years caring for Riziki during her treatment, but now the shoe is on the other foot, and Riziki has become able to provide for her sister. Zawadi lives with the SHONA women, and Riziki helps provide her with food and housing, as well as paying for her to return to school.

Solange
grew up in rural village in Masisi and became handicapped from polio as a young child. While she was growing up she also faced the loss of both her parents to illness, and her eyes still fill with tears when remembering them. She was cared for by an elderly grandmother, but remained unable to leave the house or go to school due to her disability. Eventually she was taken to the Handicapped Center for treatment, and she spent her teenage years there, undergoing an operation to straighten her legs and learning to walk with the help of heavy metal leg braces and crutches. In June 2009 Solange graduated from the Handicapped Center Sewing Program and was required to move out of the Center. The rural home she grew up in has been destroyed by the war, and her remaining family (2 younger siblings) are living in a refugee camp, leaving Solange with few options to return to. SHONA offered Solange an internship, which provided her with a place to live and food to eat, as she continued to grow in her sewing skills. Solange has proven to be a dedicated craftsperson, and an excellent team-member, and has now joined SHONA full-time. She is now providing for herself through the work of her own hands and hopes to soon be earning enough money to begin helping her younger siblings in the camp.

Roy
lives with his wife and six children. They have also taken in a young niece and a nephew who are refugees in Goma, having fled their rural village due to the war. Despite his strong talent in sewing, before Roy began working with SHONA he lacked his own sewing machine and workspace and found himself working for other tailors, barely able to feed his family and unable to afford even a small house for his family. He became handicapped as a young child due to polio, and grew up unable to hold himself upright or walk. He was also never able to attend school. At the age of twelve a relative brought him to the handicapped center where he was treated. A quiet and unassuming man, Roy is also surprisingly determined. After being treated at the handicapped center he chose to enroll in a regular primary school, beginning first grade at 12 years old. Through sheer determination he made it all the way to 11th grade before dropping out for financial reasons. Through his SHONA income and a generous donation, Roy has been able to rent a home for his family as well as his own small workshop and buy his own sewing machine. His new income offers bright hope for his young family.

Via
is paid a small salary to teach the SHONA women French, Math and Health. She is a 5th year medical student, originally from the town of Butembo and an incredible example of perseverence and quiet strength. The number of women who finish medical school in Congo is very low, as pressure to marry and have children often overtakes other plans. Via takes her responsibilities both as a teacher and as a medical student very seriously, and works hard to communicate the power of education as a means of empowerment. She uses her salary to pay her school fees, buy school books, and help put food on the table.

Mapendo, Riziki, Dawn, Solange, Argentine

Dawn
is an American who has lived in both Congo and Rwanda. She lived with her husband in Goma, Congo for three years, from 2006-2009. She is an English teacher by profession, and spent her first months in Goma learning Swahili and teaching English at one of the local universities. While she enjoyed teaching at the university, she often found herself overwhelmed by the level of poverty in Goma, and wanted to do something a bit more tangible to address in some small way the poverty and desperation that many people live with. After listening to the strong desire for reliable and dignified work, she bought a sewing machine, and worked with a few neighbors to discover whether it would be possible to sew simple bags and sell them in the US. SHONA started with those few seeds, but quickly became a small group of talented young women, who live with physical disabilities but also with incredible joy and determination. They had been trained to sew at the Handicapped Center in Goma and were ready to move out on their own. For the following years Dawn worked daily with just a few women, learning from their sewing and Swahili skills, developing products with them, training them in quality control, and teaching courses in math, accounting and leadership skills. She helped them move into their own house and create a workshop, while also working to sell SHONA products online. She is currently living in New York City, with her husband, and working on expanding SHONA's online presence and sales. She communicates regularly with each craftsperson through text messaging and phone calls. Her passion is to keep SHONA as grassroots as possible, working specifically with handicapped women who would rarely have the opportunity to to run their own businesses in this way. Her goal is to use new technologies (such as text messaging) and her personal relationships with the women to create a system for person-to-person fair trade, connecting these women to customers in the US, without becoming dependent on middle men or expensive management structures. She believes that by empowering each craftsperson to act as her own small business, they are empowered not only in their work but throughout life. Dawn's work with SHONA is not funded by anyone (she is not a missionary or on staff with any organization), rather she simply found herself living in Goma and wanted to be a good neighbor to those around her. She has donated her time, her energy, and a significant amount of start-up capital to SHONA Congo because she believes in the craftspeople and she believes that we are all called to find ways to serve those around us. Currently Dawn teaches ESL in New York and works on SHONA in her off-time. She could use some help, or some funding, that would allow her to dedicate more time to SHONA.