Originally posted on the GHNI website

For many women in the western world, sewing is a hobby. Some love to create quilts for a friend’s newborn or homemade Halloween costumes for children. Many search Pinterest for the latest DIY project and begin threading the sewing machine. When we reminisce about our mother’s sewing machine, fond memories of the care she took crafting items of sentiment enter easily to mind.

Some children around the world will soon remember how their mother’s sewing machine saved lives. For women in villages in Indonesia and Egypt, for example, sewing is providing a path out of extreme poverty. Where work is scarce and income is meager, children starve. They cannot go to school because parents cannot afford fees and uniforms. These families are striving to survive day after day.

When these communities invited GHNI to begin Transformational Community Development (TCD) lessons for interested villagers, things began to change. Women wanted to learn how to sew, so GHNI provided sewing machines on loan. The village women learned small business skills and set off to increase family incomes while also paying back the money for the sewing machines so other women may benefit by receiving a loaned machine, as well.

Other villages learning TCD principles are interested in beginning entrepreneurial sewing programs after hearing of previous success stories. All they need are sewing machines!

As you begin making your list for holiday gift giving this season, will you consider adding a sewing machine for a woman living in extreme poverty?

– See more at: http://www.globalhopenetwork.org/us/blog/remembering-mother%E2%80%99s-sewing-machine#sthash.rqPaz1p7.dpuf