- 🎁 Tailoring training provided to a widowed mother
- 🧵 New skills to earn a regular income
- 🏡 A family supported by a mother’s earnings
For many women in rural Rwanda, losing a husband also means losing the family’s only source of income. Without skills or training, widows are often left struggling to meet even their children’s most basic needs.
Through Good Gifts, the gift of Train Women: the breadwinners supports women to gain practical skills, such as tailoring, so they can earn a reliable income, become independent, and support their families.
Mathilda, a mother of three from Huye District in Southern Rwanda, lost her husband in 2008. He worked as a builder and was the family’s breadwinner. When he died, she took on sole responsibility for caring for their children, but without skills she had no way to earn an income. With support from SURF, she joined a training course in tailoring.
When my husband died, I did not think I was going to survive the responsibilities of meeting the family needs,” she explains. “But somehow with the help of people I have managed. Tailoring is helping me to earn an income to provide for my children.”
Today, Mathilda works in her garden in the mornings and does tailoring in the afternoons. As her orders grow, she plans to make tailoring her main source of income.
Your gift helps women like Mathilda become their family’s breadwinners, building independence, dignity, and a brighter future for their children.
This gift was delivered in partnership with Survivors Fund (SURF), supporting survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi and their families across Rwanda.
