The EAC offers classes in basic business skills as part of our adult education program. In these classes, potential entrepreneurs learn about supply and demand, costing, saving, financing, record-keeping, and marketing, among other things.

The Vutakaka Sewing Club was one of the first projects the EAC initiated in Takaungu — it began even before the Vutakaka Center was built — and it has become one of our most exciting and successful projects.

Classes of 14 (mostly women) come to the Center five days a week to learn how to sew, both by hand and using a pedal sewing machine. Over the course of the one-year class, students learn how to make items such as bags, quilts, aprons, baby dresses and shirts. On days when class is not in session, participants can come to the center to make items and practice their skills.

When the Club first started, all sewing was done by hand. Since then, generous donors have granted the EAC money to buy 8 Singer sewing machines. The pace of production and the excitement of the participants have increased with the profit margin. Sewing Club members are now at the Center virtually every day, looking to get a little time on a sewing machine.

After completion of the class, the students may continue to make products at the Center and sell them through the EAC or use their skills to work elsewhere.

The EAC has developed a network of outlets in Kenya and the U.S. where the "Takaungu" label items are sold, with money going to support the Center and to the people making the items.

Many of the products are made using local patterned fabrics called lesos (LAY-soes). The lesos are used by local woman as skirt wraps, shoulder wraps, head wraps, even to strap babies to their backs! They are beautiful and colorful, giving non-Kenyans a flavor of the place where they were made. Many of the lesos contain a proverb in Kiswahili, the local language.

Our sewing club has been so popular with the local community that our current building is filled to capacity. We are in immediate need of a new facility to house our classes and manufacturers.