Progress Report of

Kiang’ombe women’s Group

September 2010
 Progress report of the Kiang’ombe women Group
T
he Kiang’ombe women are still
making the sisal bags and doing
very well. During a last week to
the groups, I paid a visit to Peter Karuga,
who is seventy two years and a member
of the Kiangombe women. Peter’s late
wife was a member in this group and
when she died of a short illness last
year. The women in this group felt an
obligation to support Karuga. Some of
the women in the group make bags for
him and that is the way he survives.
He has five children and occasionally
gets help from his older son. Karuga is
partially blind and is struggling with his
children.
M
ama Fatuma or Josephine Wangari
is a sixty nine year old woman. The
house she lives in was a donation by
a group that was building houses for women
over sixty years. Her three daughters passed
away and she is now staying with four
children. Every morning when she wakes
up, she goes to the market to buy vegetables
which she sells to people in the village. She
has problems walking far because during the
war (colonial times) she was shot and now
and then her foot gets pains. Her husband
had been dead for twenty one years and
she thanks God that now she has seen two
generations of her children, Josephine is
happy with the baskets program which she
says is a big boost for her and her family.
The process of making the basket

Florence with the women’s Group

T
eresia Njeri commonly known as Mama
Ndeli was born in 1935 and was blessed
with nine children. Two of her children
have died and she has six children that they
have left behind. At the moment one of her
son is in hospital because he was diagnosed
with cancer. The hospital bill is escalating
and the family is at the moment fund raising
for the money to pay the rising hospital
bill. This seventy five year old woman is
constantly stressed and always remembers
how her twenty eight cows were stolen one
night without ever being found. She is still
mourning her husband who died in 1994
and also her son who died in June 2010.
She always wakes to feed her rabbits in the
morning and also find food for her family.
Every evening she works on her baskets
which she is very happy about because the
time bags are requested for, she is able to
find food for her family. At the moment she
hopes that people will be able to help her
with the fund raising for her son’s hospital
bill.