Our teacher is now multi-skilled & multi-purpose
Magdalena Alex is a resident at Kirumba area in Mwanza township. She has been a tailor for five years, owning three sewing machines. She is among the project beneficiaries who has accessed maintenance services from one of the fundis trained by the TFSR CYMRU project.* When visited by the Project Officer, Magdalena had the following to say:
“I am a mother of one child and still living with my parents. However I live an independent life gaining my income from sewing. My father is also a tailor and he is the one who helped me get a machine four years ago. From my own earn-ings I managed to buy other two machines and now I have three. Our home is near two primary schools and a children’s day care centre. These schools provide a good market oppor-tunity for my work. Every year I received orders to make uni-forms for pupils. In addition Kirumba Police Station is nearby and sometimes I also get some requests from there. Life is really not bad.
My sewing machines (all Butterfly brand) use to get problems most of the time. A number of fundis were coming to fix them but I doubt if they are really trained. They will work on a machine, today you pay them and then after two or three days it is broken again! I spent a lot of money and I even ended up blaming the machines. But one day, I visited my friend who leaves near one the primary schools. I found her with a teacher whom I know very well—one of the primary school teachers in our place. The teacher was very busy working on my friend’s sewing machine! I wanted to know what it’s is all about and later learned that this teacher is also trained in maintaining and fixing sewing machines. I asked where was he rained, and I was told at SIDO where there is a project funded by a wazungu’s (Europeans) project called TFSR Cymru. I asked Teacher Zakaria to visit me at my place and inspect my machines.
One day he managed to come and after examining all the machines he discovered that none of them was in order. At first I didn’t trust him but on seeing how he was sorting out item after item, cleaning here and there and fixing everything back again, I was convinced that he knew what he was doing. Then on testing the machines they were much more smooth and faster. He did not ask for any pay that day but I kept calling him whenever I have problems with any of my machines.
Teacher Zacharia is not only a good and confident fundi but he charges a very reasonable cost comparing to others. I really commend him for adding another skill to his profession, a decision which makes him both busy enough, earning more income for his family and also supporting tailors in our area. I urge other youths to also diverse their skills, and thanks for the project which supports such issues.
Thank you”
* This is our “Keep Them Singers Singing” project, jointly funded by the Welsh Government’s Wales Africa Grant Scheme and Peter Stebbings memorial Charity