Over the last 16 years a local business owner has taught women in Cameroon and Uganda how to sew and helped them start their own businesses.
Luisa Del Rosario, 74, who owns Luisa’s Draperies in Guelph, has travelled to Africa about seven times since 2000 teaching local women the sewing trade.
She recently returned from a trip to Uganda on Feb. 24.
“I set them up with the sewing machine and teach them a little bit, I mean the basics of how to use them and how to sew a bit,” she said. “Try to get them to work, that’s all.”
The project began 16 years ago when Del Rosario met two people visiting Guelph from Cameroon.
“I brought them here at the shop and their eyes went wide open and that’s when they invited me, if I would come to Cameroon and if I would help their people,” she said.
“I said … ‘if I will do any good and I’ll make a difference, yes I’ll come’ but the way I am I always have to analyze … (to) see if it’s working or not working and I told them ‘I will come and if I think it’s going to work then I’ll be back.’”
Del Rosario returned every few years until the women operating in Cameroon were self-sufficient and able to teach others who wanted to learn to sew.
“I brought them five machines to start but with the five machines now … they’re growing on their own,” she said. “We stopped sending them money for this project and they’re doing on their own now and that’s my goal. I help you, I give you the base but then you’ve got to do it yourself because we cannot keep sending money all the time, that’s what I believe.”
Del Rosario said one of the challenges she noticed for the woman in Africa was that they didn’t have the right tools. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to work, they just couldn’t complete the task with their equipment.
“We have to remember that sometimes we tend to say they’re lazy, or they’re not doing it … (but) they don’t have the equipment that we do,” she said. “They just have these machines that break as you touch them … It’s so sad.”
Even when the women were supplied with good quality machines, environmental conditions still posed challenges.
The machines that Del Rosario brought with her have a leather cord to make the wheel work, but in the humidity the cord was stretching and not working property.
“I was having a hard time with these cords and so those ladies all sat in one day and they started to get material and rolling it and make a cord out of material,” she said.
“They’re not stupid. They have a way to fix this. I didn’t think about it but they did …
“It gives you more power, more encouragement to say, ‘yeah they make it work.’”
About five years ago, after the women in Cameroon were self sufficient and making money at their trade, Del Rosario shifted her focus to Ugandan women.
“Over there they’ll do fine because there is a lot of school uniforms and then after the school uniforms they can do other things,” she explained.
One woman Del Rosario met in Uganda stood out. She was a widow and didn’t have money to buy food. During the training the woman worked hard, Del Rosario said, and at the conclusion Del Rosario decided to give the woman one of 12 machines that had to be distributed between 27 women.
“Well this lady had this little room … with the bed and then the little space to cook,” Del Rosario said. The woman chose to put the sewing machine outside in the front of her house because there was no room inside.
“I was very, very, very content and satisfied that I’d given her the machine,” Del Rosario said. “She was so happy just anything that she would make to make a dollar, even a dollar a day, she would have been happy.”
Now, three years later, Del Rosario said the woman is doing well.
“She’s doing good … she’s making enough to put food on her table … she’s not going to get rich but she’s happy that she’s got something to eat at the end of the day,” Del Rosario said.
After 16 years she said she’s happy with the results of her sewing missions, but in order to ensure education in Uganda continues, Del Rosario said she sponsored Agnes, a 21-year-old woman so she could attend school and learn the trade.
“I decided to sponsor a girl to go to school because I felt I’m seventy-some, I never know when I’m going to stop this,” she said.
“That’s why I decided to do it myself, to sponsor the girl and she’s gone to school for this for two years, she graduated and so I went back with three machines this time … and I got her to operate the machines this time and she’s very eager to get going.”
Agnes began her education when she was 19, which is the same age that Del Rosario was when she immigrated to Canada from Italy in 1960. Del Rosario came to Canada with her family but already owned a business in Italy and had all of her sewing training.
“It is my job and it’s always been my job and I love it,” she said. “I really love my job, that’s why I’m still here.”
Del Rosario said she has to go back to Uganda at least one more time to get Agnes set up in the right space to begin her sewing business.
“I feel that I’ve been asked, and I went and I said yes and I’ve done what I had to do and if it didn’t work I was going to pull out – but I can’t pull out because it’s working,” Del Rosario said.
The majority of Del Rosario’s trips and sewing machine donations are self funded, however she does receive funds from the Rotary Club of Guelph as well.
To donate to Del Rosario’s project, visit www.rotaryclubofguelph.com and specify that the donation should go to “Luisa’s Project.”
