NAIROBI, Kenya | Tuesday 20 July 2010

From the Low Streets to High Fashion

A social enterprise in Nairobi helps former street girls earn a living by making fashionable clothes for women.

20 July 2010

By Philip Emase

One year ago at the age of 17, Monica Nzembi dropped out of high school to marry her slightly older boyfriend.

A former street girl, Monica had grown up at a rehabilitation centre for former street girls on the outskirts of Nairobi. She had found a family and an education at Anita’s Home, and the following year she was scheduled to sit for her secondary school certificate when she chose marriage over everything else.

A few months afterwards while she was heavily pregnant, her husband left for the city centre and simply never returned. A frantic search for him began when he did not show up for three days, and it was two long weeks before his mangled body was found at a public morgue, the cause of death unclear.

Monica was devastated. Widowed before the age of eighteen and her future suddenly a thick cloud of mist, she had no idea how she would support herself and her unborn child.

Her hope was rekindled last February when two Italian ladies founded Get Together Girls (G2G), a fashion project for former street girls at Anita’s Home. The project targets former street girls who are unable to continue with their education and especially single mothers like Monica who have no income. Its objective is to help these girls achieve self-reliance.

The project is run by Grazia Orsolato, an Italian lady who first came to Anita’s Home in the summer of 2004.

A professional in administration, Grazia worked in Milan for 13 years as a customer administration manager with Pirelli. In 2004 she chose to spend her vacation as a volunteer in Africa instead of taking the traditional Western holiday at the seaside or some other exotic getaway. Aged 32 at the time, Grazia had won a place in a “work camp” sponsored by the Italian NGO Amani to enable young Italians to volunteer in Africa. Amani implements the work camp every year in partnership with the Koinonia Community, a non-profit organization that runs Anita’s Home and several other projects in Kenya, Zambia and Sudan.

The time Grazia spent at Anita’s Home had a profound effect on her. Most of the girls at the Home were either rescued from the streets or were born to single parents without the proper means to take care of them.  The centre met their basic needs and provided an education, but Grazia felt there was a need to assist those who were not guaranteed of a future through formal education. She felt it was necessary to equip them with some practical skill that would earn them a living.

Grazia shared this idea with her friend, Italian stylist Roberta Vincenzi, and six years later in February this year, they travelled together to Anita’s Home to launch G2G.

They identified a pioneer group of eight girls, and for two weeks Roberta, taught them the basics of the craft. They learned how to handle a sewing machine, how develop designs, work with patterns and how to sew straight without weaving off course.

 “They learned very fast even though most of them had never even touched a sewing machine before,” Grazia says proudly.

The group operates from a small room at Anita’s Home with just eight sewing machines: four of them manual and four electric. They work six hours a day, starting at nine in the morning and punching out at three in the afternoon, Monday through Friday.

The G2G products are all handmade. Their couture covers all body sizes, and they target both the Kenyan and international markets.

 “In Africa, our target is the middle class,” Grazia explains. “We make classy garments for them using African materials such as the kitenge.”

On July 3, the G2G Collection participated at a premier fashion and beauty expo held at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. The three day event hosted by former Miss India-Kenya Pinky Ghelani featured the crème de la crème of East Africa’s fashion industry. Prominent design houses, fashion magazines, indie creators and franchise owners were all present, including Sylvia Owori, the eminent Ugandan designer whose creations have been modelled in Milan and Paris.

The crowd’s interest was roused when Pinky Ghelani introduced the G2G Collection as the creation of former street girls. Just in time with this introduction, the first G2G model emerged in African print trousers and a loose Western-style maroon top. Cameras flashed as the next model strutted her way out in a brown African kitenge blouse and European-style trousers, drawing applause from the sizable crowd ringing the catwalk.

Grazia says the originality of the G2G designs has already drawn considerable attention. A few local companies have expressed interest in stocking products from the collection and the group has also received some orders from Italy through their website.

Grazia wants to ensure G2G gains a firm footing on the Kenyan market before she returns to Italy, from where she will work to introduce the collection onto the European and American fashion markets.

“My motivation is to assist the girls get employment; that is why I am volunteering. I could always go back home to Italy and get a good job,” she explains.

“My dream is to achieve a fashion centre, a sort of complex where production, training and selling all go on, hopefully along Ngong Road,” Grazia muses when asked about the future of G2G. “I hope the girls will have the skills to run everything on their own when this time comes, including administration and marketing. We will introduce some management training for them in the future.”

The G2G project does not have any external funding and Grazia sustains it from her own personal savings. She gives each girl a $4 daily allowance, a modest amount that nevertheless makes an impact considering the high levels of poverty and unemployment in Kenya.

Despite having existed for just about half a year, the project is already touching lives. It has for instance become Monica’s sole hope for her future and that of her little baby girl.

“From my earnings I have my own place, I can afford a babysitter, and G2G has reunited me with so many friends I had left behind at Anita’s Home. I feel less lonely because we lean on each other”, Monica says with a sigh.