HEALing Arts
HEALing Arts began in 2006 as a way to provide practical occupational skills to the women waiting for and healing from fistula surgery at HEAL Africa. Two seamstresses work with the women daily, teaching them to sew skirts, purses, bracelets, tablecloths, shirts and wallets. Another teacher trains the women to weave and carve with banana leaves, creating beautiful baskets and wall hangings. The items that the women create are sold to hospital personnel and visiting volunteers. The women are paid for each piece that they complete, giving them a way to generate income while at the hospital.
The women are taught marketable skills such as sewing, jewelry making, and lotion and soap making. They also receive business and management training. In addition, they will also receive training in productive and effective agriculture through HEAL Africa’s partner, Mawe Hai. Lastly, when they are released from the hospital they will leave with an amount of material that will enable them to expand upon the skill they learned. The fruits of the program are self-confidence, financial independence, and a reinforced sense of community.
Some of the positive effects of the HEALing Arts program:
- Women are sewing and making jewelry already and the enthusiasm the women have about learning a skill that will enable them to generate income is incredible. They clap, dance, and sing every time they learn something new.
- The quality has improved so much this year that Eve Ensler asked HEALing Arts to supervise the making of purses to be sold at events for the VDay Campaign, which featured DR Congo in 2008.
- This program has provided funds for the children at the hospital to attend Tungane School at the hospital. The children have large amounts of idle time on their hands while they are at the hospital, as they do not have to concern themselves with daily survival tasks; this therefore serves as the opportune time to concentrate on education. The program provides for a full time teacher and the cost of building a classroom on to an existing building.
- At the end of their stay, children from rural areas and children who cannot afford to go to school will be given a scholarship to continue their education because no child should have to stop going to school at age 10 because of financial reasons.
- Children with HIV/AIDS treated under home care by HEAL Africa who cannot afford to go to school will be identified and given a scholarship to attend school.
“The work of training these women traumatised by sexual violence in the skills of tailoring is greatly important to me as they will now have a way to get by in the future,” stresses Dada, a seamstress working to teach the women as part of HEALing Arts. “They will no longer be left alone and stranded.”
“Before this the women were disappointed with life and many were traumatised,” says Francine Ndamuso, another seamstress. “They now want to work hard, and because of the money they are earning, they are staying inside the hospital compound at night instead of wandering around outside in search of men to help them out.”
Positivity flows from the workshop as women and girls dance and work to the Congolese tunes on the radio, reassured that they have the promise of a future.