Watotees: from watoto, children in Swahili, and T-shirts
Watotees are T-shirts with African-themed designs. Watotees is also a project to help children in Eastern Congo go to school.The money made from the sales of Watotees (with absolutely no profit for us), will be used to give micro-loans to single mothers with children, mostly widows as a result of war, to start their own businesses. This will enable them to pay the children's school fees so that they can spend their childhood studying instead of doing manual labor as is often the case.
At the moment Watotees is a pilot project that we're starting in Bukavu, the capital of the South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the end of April, 2008.
An example of a woman that will be part of the first batch of micro-loans grantees is Pascaline, aged 26 with two boys aged 6 and 8. She became an orphan about 10 years ago when her parents were killed during the second Congo war of 1998-2003. The relatives that took care of her after her parents were killed and arranged her marriage with a familiy friend, but about 5 years ago her husband disappeared and is now presumably in Kinshasa. She works selling fruits and vegetables when she can find some, or doing various other small jobs, but she barely has enough to feed them. With Watotees, she'll be able to start her own stall in the central market and buy stock to sell.
