Dreams do come true for our Kijiji Mission graduates.

At the age of 33, Martha is one of our oldest graduates. Having a career in fashion and design has always been a lifelong dream for Martha, one she thought she could never attain. The firstborn in a family of six children, Martha grew up and went to primary school in Eldoret town. Her father passed away when she was 12, forcing the family to move in with their elderly grandparents. After she completed her primary school at Std 8, her mother could not afford to pay for her secondary education, thus, as a young teenager, she was forced to look for employment as a house girl in Nairobi to be able to assist her younger siblings and her mother. In the year 2007, during the tribal clashes, the entire family was forced to flee their small farm in Eldoret town to join the tens of thousands of internally displaced refugees (IDPs) in one of many rapidly put-together, refugee camps throughout the Rift Valley.  The camp that Martha’s family fled to was on the outskirts of Olkalou town, Nyandarua County. Having their land in Eldoret confiscated by land grabbers during the tribal war, they now had nowhere to call home and were forced to build makeshift houses out of polythene in the IDP camp area where all those that fled put up makeshift houses. This is where her family, along with most IDP refugees are still living, with no clean water, electricity, medical care, employment, or land to cultivate or grow food. Thirteen years later, the condition these refugees live in is in a deteriorated state.
When Covid first arrived in Kenya in March 2020, closing down all borders and devastating most businesses, even pathetically paid house girls, who were earning around $30.00 pm month, found themselves unemployed. Martha had no other option than to return to her family, still squatting in the IDP camp.
It was during one of our weekly food hamper distribution programs to the IDP camp that Martha’s family now calls home, that Martha learned about our free vocational training program, applied, and was accepted.
THAT DAY MARTHA FINALLY REALIZED HER LIFE AND HER FUTURE WERE ABOUT TO CHANGE FOREVER.
During the last few months of Martha’s training, we were approached by two organizations that wanted our students to do sewing projects for them.The first was a joint project of my Rotary Club of Nakuru and the Sunrise Rotary Club of Davis, California.  The assignment was to sew reusable, washable sanitary pads. This was a great experience for our students as they were able to work on their speed and quality of work. Plus, they all got to keep the 25 cents per pad and bag they produced.The second person to contact us was an entrepreneur from Nairobi who was expanding her successful business of making dolls that young Kenyan girls could identify with. The miniature, traditional Kenyan outfits, made out of the wonderful, vibrant East African fabrics that the girls could interchange were becoming a big hit. 
Just a small sampling of the cute doll clothes Martha created while living with us.
Bubblegum Kids became such a success with middle-class families, that the founder recently opened a retail shop in Karen, an upmarket suburb of Nairobi, employing Martha to both work in the shop and continue to make her specialty doll clothes.
Thank you for reading about Martha’s long journey to becoming a successful woman.
As always, I have changed her name to protect our student’s privacy