In July 2010 Margaret went to Kenya to work with the Malaika Mums in Maai Mahiu, a town of about 30,000 an hour away from Nairobi. The Mums are women with disabled children, and because of that they and their child were shunned. There were no social services, the women and their children stayed home so no one would see them, the children got no education and the women had no work and no hope. A small foundation, CTC International, came into being to help the Mums and their kids; CTC stands for Comfort the Children. The foundation has built a school for the children and does all kinds of work in the community. Each year about half a dozen teams come from the US and Canada to do things in Maai Mahiu.
In 2008 a team of people from Kansas State University came to visit, and one of them taught the women to sew. Her name is Denise Dias, and she was our team leader for this trip. I read about her experiences in an American Sewing Guild (ASG) newsletter article, and thought that was just such a cool thing to do. Last January another article announced that she was going back for her third trip and was looking for people to join her. Our six team members came from all over the US. We were the first team to be devoted to sewing to come work with the Mums.
This web site is a journal of my experiences. I'd like to thank Belinda for some of the pictures used here.
If you'd like to help the Mums, you can order their grocery totes or make a donation to help build their new community center which will allow them to expand the program to more Mum. You can do either or both at the CTC website
Click on any photo to see more about that topic.
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Getting there |
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My accommodations |
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The town of Maai Mahiu |
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Sewing with the Mums |
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Field trip to Nairobi |
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Comfort the Children Foundation activities |
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Our safari |