There is a stat cited in the fol­low­ing story that blows me away, I will have to look into it to see if it’s cor­rect. Is it true that AIDS orphans make up 85% of Tanzania’s population?

At any rate, we found out about a great mis­sion oper­ated by a Wis­con­sin nun. Sis­ter Stella Storch vis­its Tan­za­nia and gives sewing skills and tools to the young female orphans there.

From The Fond du Lac Reporter, we read this inter­view with the Sis­ter.

Sis­ter Stella Storch, coor­di­na­tor of peace, jus­tice and ecol­ogy for the Con­gre­ga­tion of the Sis­ters of St. Agnes, recently returned from Tan­za­nia, East Africa. Each year, after this annual visit, she comes back to share the story of “Empow­er­ing Women’s Future: the AIDS Orphan Sewing Project.”

Storch said AIDS orphans, who live on less than $1 per per­son a day, make up 85 per­cent of the country’s population

Many of the girls who come to the sewing project walk one to two hours each way, and one girl walks three hours. The girls, most of whom are 15 to 20 years old, are will­ing to do this for three years in order to learn the basics of sewing, and, ulti­mately, to become tai­lors, Storch said.

Upon grad­u­a­tion, they are given a sewing machine so they are fully inde­pen­dent. The first three grad­u­ates staff a store in town that sells their dresses and night­gowns. Occa­sion­ally, they receive a con­tract from the gov­ern­ment to sew uni­forms for chil­dren going to school.

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