Help a lovely Tongan woman with five children, to start her own sewing business.

On a recent visit I met Malia and other Tongan women at a sewing workshop, Malia had extremely good sewing skills but needed tuition in patternmaking and cutting out fabric. I gave her lessons and she picked it up very quickly.

Malia was displaced from her family home along with her 5 children, she is a lovely gracious person, she works hard in her cleaning job to make a comfortable home and feed her children, this is her sole income as there is no state benefit in Tonga.

She was so thrilled to be given the opportunity to learn to make tupenu and kofu (clothing) for herself and her children, and spoke to me about the possibly of being able to sew to order for paying customers, which would enable her to enrich the lives of her children by earning an income.

Main issues are, Malia doesn’t have the resources to start this sewing business, her needs are few and a sewing machine being the main need, but any monies raised over the amount of the machine would be used to purchase scissors and other sewing notions.

All funds raised will be transferred to a nominated Tongan bank account of an overseas volunteer worker based in Nuku'alofa, they will purchasing the sewing machine on Malia's behalf and she will be presented with the machine by this volunteer.

Please give generously and help someone to help themselves.