Naissosion Sewing Project
Arusha, Tanzania
Naissosion (pronounced Nigh-so-seeian) is an independent sewing cooperative founded in 1997 by Gloria Sandilen, a compassionate and educated Maasai woman, with the help of her local church. Gloria grew concerned after she and her friends at church began meeting more and more young women who had married young, had children, and were living in extreme poverty. Most had never attended school. Many were in abusive relationships. Some had been abandoned by their partners and turned to prostitution to support their children.
Gloria founded this project to provide these women a way to earn a living and support their families by teaching sewing and basic business principles. With these skills, the women could set up small shops in their homes or in the marketplace and begin to earn enough money to support their families. At graduation, each Naissosion graduate receives a sewing machine. The project has three areas of focus:
Give women a source of income, livelihood and pride.
Help make sure that the women have money to improve family nutrition, pay school fees, and afford medical care.
Provide a supportive network of women that help each other with business matters and other life challenges.
Our Partnership
In 2004 Harambee Centre partnered with the Naissosion Sewing Project to build a training center and help support growing needs. Washington resident Karen Smith, who served on the organization’s board of directors for five years, met Gloria in a 1997 trip to Tanzania and fostered this partnership. Gloria had been running the program from her own home and due to growing demand was in need of a larger space, dedicated to the project to enable Naissosion to implement strategies to become a self-sustained organization.
Together with Harambee Centre supporters, funds were raised to:
complete construction of the training center (completed in 2012),
provide 200+ graduates with sewing machines and fabric to begin their own small businesses,
hire a full time instructor and bring on some graduates to train subsequent groups of women,
help Naissosion to become a thriving self-sustainable organization.
Ongoing Self-Sustainment
In the summer of 2013, the Naisosion Sewing Project began being housed under the umbrella of the Rural Community Network (RUCONET), a registered charity founded in 2008 that works with indigenous groups in Tanzania to improve local community and household welfare. RUCONET manages several projects targeting women, including classes on how to make and sell crafts like beads and textiles.
In 2016, after several years of full support, Gloria and Harambee Centre fully transitioned this project into the capable hands of its graduates and under the guidance RUCONET.