Home | Alumni | Beads of Hope: Raleigh Alumni Omary acts for vulnerable children
Omary works in a local children’s community centre which supports children from vulnerable families who have finished school and had no employment opportunities. He wanted to use his skills and experience as a bead-maker to support the centre to run and to support women and families to attend.
In bead-making workshops, Omary taught attendees of the centre how to make craft products such as batik bags, wallets and beaded jewellery. Not only were families able to learn a valuable creative skill, but the products they created were able to provide essential income for the children’s centre so that children could access the support they need. As demand increased for beaded products, Omary’s workshops grew and more people were able to learn creative skills which would also contribute to the children’s community centre.
This simple idea – skill sharing – was such a success
It didn’t end here. Passionate about continuing to better his community, Omary identified how the skills he learnt whilst volunteering with Raleigh could be so transferable to benefit even more members of his community. Many children from his street were not attending nursery school and were starting school without knowing how to read and write, putting them at a disadvantage to their peers. For many children this was because school fees were too expensive, and the location of the nursery meant that it would be unsafe for young children to walk to themselves.
Omary wanted to tackle this. Using income from his craft products, Omary and his team took action to open a mini nursery – in a different location – where young children could learn to read and write. Not only has this levelled the playing fields for these children and their peers, but it has been a good platform to help parents understand the importance of education before joining primary schools.
“From the start it was not easy for us to secure market for our products but due to the network we built led us to big markets because now we can take our products to public holiday festivals such us Sbasaba and Nanenane which generate great income for the centre.”
– Omary, Raleigh Tanzania Alumni
Are you taking action to make a positive difference in your community? We would love to hear about it! Get in touch at stories@raleighinternational.org
