Some ladies had been invited to the seminars which were taken by Georges, Lydia and Margaret on their visit to Fiziland in February 2008. These were mostly ladies who had some sort of leadership role in the community. During the course of the ladies’ day, Margaret and Lydia were able to tell the ladies that they had bought 5 treadle sewing machines in Burundi and had them ready to hand over! There was great excitement and dancing at the news!

These ladies had no idea that they were about to become business women in a whole new venture. If we ourselves could imagine the challenge of setting up a business without specific training or experience and with virtually no office equipment, then it would be extremely daunting. We had taken sewing accessories with us in our luggage. These included scissors, pinking shears, pins, tape measures, patterns and thread.  We had bought rolls of material in Bujumbura which would be suitable for school uniforms, and Lydia was later able to buy some prettier material for little girls’ dresses.