A Life Transformed by ABC Rafikis
Forty-year-old Rahab Sopiato gave birth to the first of three children when she was just 12. She bursts out laughing when I ask what happened to the father (so do all the women sitting around her with colourful beads on their laps), but makes it clear that he didn’t stick around, so she scratched out a living making charcoal.
It was gruelling, tough work in the Maasai community of Kajiado, located a two-day walk south of Nairobi in Kenya’s Rift Valley.
To make charcoal, Rahab scavenged branches and chopped them into pieces. Then she covered the pile in leaves, set it alight, before burying it in dirt. The heap smouldered. In three days’ time, she had charcoal briquettes, enough to fill one sack.
The market was three hours away, so she borrowed a neighbour’s donkey to get there. If she was lucky, she sold the sack for 100 Kenyan shillings, enough to buy corn flour to make a thin porridge for her children. If she wasn’t, she returned home with the sack but no food for dinner.
She repeated the process of making charcoal and trudging to market for three decades. She says she was very thin and sickly; so were her children. She couldn’ t afford to send her eldest daughter to high school, which in Kenya can cost the equivalent of $350 CDN a year.
A high school education in Kenya is thought to be the golden ticket to a better life. She wanted to provide that for her children.
Then two years ago, Rahab heard about ME to WE Artisans, which paid Maasai mamas like herself a fair wage for their beaded handi-work, which was designed for a Western market and sold around the world. (ME to WE Artisans donates half of its profits to WE Charity, and uses the other half to grow the business. ME to WE Artisans now employs over 800 mamas in Kenya).
Rahab couldn’t believe she’d get paid to do something she’d done her entire life. She thought a fair wage just might change her life. And it has.
She now makes bracelets, necklaces and earrings. This fall, when I met her, she was focusing on ABC Rafiki Friend Chains. Each ABC Rafiki sold buys school supplies for one child for one year. Fingers flying, she makes about 40 a day.
With the money she has so far earned, she has sent her eldest daughter to secondary school. At 29, her daughter just graduated.
Rahab also happily told me what she did with her first few paycheques from ME to WE Artisans. She bought two cows so her family had milk. Then she set up a small shop that sells sugar, soda, flour, rice, potatoes and sweets. While she waits for customers, she beads.
At night, Rahab sits on the comfortable cushioned seats she bought, in her newly painted house, and watches her small TV. After many years of unrelenting hard work, she relaxes. She pats her stomach and strong thighs and says the extra pounds she has gained are another tangible sign of her good fortune.
She hopes to never make another charcoal briquette in her life. She also hopes that her children, well educated and well on their way, will support her as she grows old. All thanks, in part, to a little chain with a big impact.
Writing by Shelley Page
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