Since I am in this area’s VHT, I was moving around the village and I saw the signpost of the organization. I was so curious as to what it was all about. I entered the office and inquired about the work they do. They told me what it is all about, and I got interested, I asked them whether I could also join and be part of those that they train, and they accepted. They actually asked me to mobilize more people. So, using my megaphone, I went around the village mobilizing more vulnerable women in the village, as well as the neighbouring villages to come and join, and they came. I could give them directions to FIST and tell them what skills we shall receive. At that time, they had just started training us in making liquid soap and doormats, and actually, people embraced it.

I wanted to add a skill that could help me earn more income to support my family. When I came here and they told me about the skills that they were going to be teaching us, I was so happy because I had always wanted to learn those skills. I joined this in 2021.

FIST has so far taught me how to make liquid soap, door mats, and right now I am learning how to tailor. In tailoring, I have made this dress that I am wearing, I have also taught how to stitch office wear, scuffs, shirts for students, shorts for young boys at school, the bags, and right now we are on African shirts. I can make them.

Actually, we are looking forward to starting a business. I want to make more African shirts and then display them to the community and sell them.

I would love to learn how to also make African craft shoes.

Yes! There is a very big need for this because by the time we were making liquid soap and door mats, I remember it was during the COVID-19 lockdown, and people were very idle. I remember very many youths would gather here to learn these skills and FIST really made them busy. They were not loitering in the village and doing bad things, they could come to do so much productive work here, and after that, they could go and sell them and earn some income.

We are very very grateful for this opportunity. I was really longing to also be taught these skills. We could hear on tv that in Kampala they have set up several sites where people can learn tailoring, and for us here we don’t have that. So I hoped that God could also help us in Walukuba and we get to be taught some tailoring skills, and that is when FIST came in. I am happy about that and really thank them for the good heart they have shown the people of Walukuba.

I got to know about FIST-Uganda after receiving a call from the trainer here. I trained her and she invited me to also come and provide my training skills. In her training of women, there was a need to assemble the tailoring machines, so I was called to come to FIST and support that. There was also a need to learn more about the embroidery machine. I also support repairing machines

When FIST started its work in the community, so many people gathered around to come and learn the skills that the people were doing. There was a high demand in the community to acquire these skills. That is when I saw the need for FIST in the community. There were about 100 people that came to learn about this.

According to my view, the people that are mainly drawn to this training are women, who are married, and who have seen an income gap in their homes in terms of income-generating activities. Others are idle people, and therefore by this project being here they had to adapt their interest to come and learn the skill. There are also some other trainees here that I see wanted it to be as additional income to their skill, others look at it as their retirement plan. We have some nurses here that came to learn.

I would like to appreciate the donors because it is such a sacrifice on their end. Donating to someone that you don’t know is hard. I would appeal to them to give these students some starting capital to support them in developing their business further

I train them on how to maintain the machine, how to thread it, and how to operate it because it has got a number of sections, there is direct stitching, buttonhole making, and then embroidery making. That involved 13 stitches. I have so far taught them the different types of stitches and where they are applied. Practically on modules like the African shirt, I have also taught them how to include the different designs