Dear friends: I thought you might like to know the story of Mikono Refugee Crafts Shop, the @JesuitRefugee Service project that we're supporting today. It's a wonderful story about a ministry that helps refugees help themselves.
It started in a bungalow in Nairobi in 1993...
It started in a bungalow in Nairobi in 1993...
Uta Fager, an Austrian lay woman, and I had worked with the "income-generating projects" at JRS for a year, helping East African refugees in Nairobi start small businesses, like Edith's and Immaculate's batiks. People would see the handicrafts and say, "Where can I buy that?"...
We realized that it would help to have a place where we could market the refugee-made handicrafts, as well as have an office where we could meet with the refugees. It was no problem filling up the shop! And business was brisk immediately....
We had a hard time keeping things in stock! And we had so many varied products. Like Tom's beautiful carved wooden chairs. Tom (on the right) was from Mozambique. As you can see, the refugees would wait on the porch outside the shop to visit with us....
Cesaire had been a nurse before she was a refugee, and then, after settling in Nairobi, turned to making beautiful jewelry, which she is showing me here. This was a posed photo: I didn't need to examine her jewelry. We always bought it all. It always sold well...
We also sponsored seminars for the refugees, on such things as budgeting and marketing, and on handicraft skills as well. This amazing woman (she insisted we call her "Mama Mzee," or "Elder Woman") ran a basket-making seminar. Michael Schopf (left) today works for JRS in Rome...
Michael, a German Jesuit who came about a year into the project, was of great help. He brought a good deal of organization to Mikono, and helped us to arrange our appearances at local fairs, where we would market our wares...
The Mikono Centre sponsored a wide variety of refugee businesses, including women's sewing cooperatives, restaurants, cattle farms, chicken farms, a bakery and here, the Splendid Tailoring Shop and School, which taught sewing...
Splendid, in the Riruta section of Nairobi, was one of our most successful projects. It was founded and run by Gauddy, a Rwandese refugee whom I admired greatly for her hard work, intelligence and sense of humor...
We also had two large carpentry workshops, like this one run by Chris, which furnished us with the beautiful tables and bookshelves for the shop. The word Mikono, by the way, is the Swahili word for "hands...."
One day on a street in Nairobi, I met Augustino, a refugee from Mozambique who was carving beautiful sculptures from ebony. I invited him to join us at Mikono. Every day he sat under a ficus tree outside the shop and made beautiful sculptures, which sold instantly....
Today, over 25 years later, the Mikono Centre continues as the Mikono Refugee Crafts Shop. It has a bustling business online as well...
I'm so proud of my time with Mikono as a young Jesuit. If I ever make it to heaven and God asks me what I did with my life, I'm not going to say I wrote this or that book, I'm going to say, "Mikono...."
For #GivingTuesday you can help support Mikono Refugee Crafts Shop and @americamag. The gift will be split two ways. Asante sana! americamagazine.org/donate
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