Pillowcase Dresses & Bermuda shorts for African children

Above Bermuda Shorts of all sizes - like the boys.

Ladies in Dolgellau, Wales, made the dresses below which Ros - our chairman, took with her on a research trip to Eastern Rwanda in 2021.

Watch a Video

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T1y4x_OrJAcT8NKbSGaoKOxVrPfPCWuE/view?usp=sharing

There is enormous poverty in the area of Eastern Rwanda especially amongst children of mothers with HIV who tend to get shunned by their neighbours and are unable to find work. Consequently many of the children are unable to go to school as their single mothers can't afford the fees. The mothers often die, leaving orphans as even though the government give free medication for HIV, it needs to be taken with food.

There was a thriving Church school in the village - before Covid, that took many of the children at no charge and gave them a mid day meal - often the only thing they had to eat in a day. Since Covid the funding was withdrawn by the US agency and the school has closed. Many children died and many are hungry..

We need only need 100 people to make a standing order of £5 a month to reinstate the food programme. Can you help? go to our donation page.

CDUK and the Pastor at the school have agreed that the food programme can reopen if we can gather sufficient funds.

The dresses that Ros took with her in 2021 were put away by Pastor Philippe until we could sent more so that all the girls might be given one each. We hope there will be enough to distribute to the local villagers so that they can send their children to school.

We were able to send more in 2023!

Look what you could do if you put your mind to it!

A group of women from Ratley in Warwickshire began making Scrubs for the NHS during the Covid 19 Lockdown. When these were no longer required they turned their skills to making 77 dresses to send to our project in Gatsibo, Rwanda. They even found the money for carriage. In true British fashion they celebrated their achievement by joining together for tea and cake.

Below is a pattern made for us by one of our volunteers. There are also other patterns on line, just put pillow case dresses into your browser & take your pick.

WILL YOU MAKE SOME DRESSES TO SEND TO RWANDA?

to make Bermuda shorts for the boys for a pattern go to

https://premeditatedleftovers.com/naturally-frugal-living/10-free-shorts-patterns-kids/

The girls above may have no other clothes apart from their school uniform & many mothers don't send their children to school because they have no clothes at all to wear & they are ashamed.

Organise a coffee morning or some small fundraising event and post the dresses in just less than 2 kilo parcels directly to Kigali in Rwanda.

If you send greater than 2 kilo parcels they will be considered commercial packages and taxes will be charged and they may not arrive and your work will be wasted. to send a 1.99 kilo parcel costs between 15-20 UK pounds.

Please do not send your gift to the charity address as we do not have money in our limited and stretched budget to post them.

Send your parcels to

Evan at

The Church of God's People

B.P. 6595

Kigali

Rwanda

Make a note of your Tracking Number in case Evan - our contact in Kigali has to chase the parcel. It is always useful to let Ros - our Chairman, know that a parcel is on the way. compassiondirectuk@gmail.com

Text CDUK to 70970 to give £5 or make a donation on the donation page.

Our grateful thanks more recently go to Sarah, Jayne and Diana from Studley who have generously sent beautiful items for me to take to Rwanda in March 2023 when I visited to finalise the Sewing Workshop for HIV mothers.

Please can you get together with friends and form a sewing group?

UNWANTED SHEETS & DUVETS?

Now we have the workshop the new trainees need unwanted sheets and duvets to use for their first training attempts, can you collect a 2 kilo pack to send, if so, go to our Sewing Strips page for instructions.

SEND YOUR BELOW 2 KILO PARCELS OF DRESSES & SHORTS TO

The Church of Gods People

BP6595

Kigali

Rwanda

Please do not send more than 2 parcels at any one time as they may be seen as a commercial enterprise and be confiscated. Leave a couple of weeks between postage. On the Customs Declaration strip state gift of home made dresses and shorts for village children. For Sewing Strips state only Gift of Sewing Strips for Village Mothers.

Make a note of your tracking numbers in case we have to chase the post office to see where the parcels has got to! Parcels can take some weeks to arrive It would be helpful if to contact Ros on 07773470384 when you send your gift so that the Church can look forward to the parcel. Or email compassiondirectuk@gmail.com

Also it would be great if you could send photos of your group - in action if possible, for us to post on Facebook. Send to compassiondirectuk@gmail.com.

Join our Facebook page www.facebook.com@thisearthisourhome and FOLLOW our new pages.

IF YOU DON'T SEW, HOW ABOUT KNITTING? GO TO OUR VOLUNTEER PAGE TO FIND OUT HOW TO KNIT FOR KIDS

Further instructions and ideas can be found online for inspiration.