Women’s Groups - Fostering Skills and Creativity

Women participating in Women’s Groups across the Reserve continue to advance their cutting and sewing styles and techniques to enhance the quality of their products. Recognizing this evolution, we invested in our first chain stitch (embroidery) sewing machine, capable of creating designs on the various items crafted. Not only will this enable women to diversify their designs and showcase their creativity, it also has the potential to elevate the value of their products, opening doors to increased income generation. This empowerment supports women to better meet their basic needs through alternative income sources independent of forest resources. 

Using the new chainstich (embroidery) machine.

To kickstart this initiative, twelve women from Epulu were carefully selected to attend a two-month crash course in the use of the new machine. Our vision is that the women who have assimilated the training well will then be able to train other members. The success of this endeavor will inform its scalability to other groups in Mambasa, Epulu, Niania, Wamba and Mungbere.