Sinead Fyda’s career began as one that people spend their lives dreaming of. An accomplished fashion expert, Sinead was living in New York City with what seemed to be the world at her fingertips, and yet something was missing from her life. In an effort to fill the void, Sinead resigned from the career that she had worked so hard to build and signed up to take place in a Tanzanian volunteer placement organization. Before she knew it, she was on a plane to Tanzania to take part in what was supposed to be a three week program.
Sinead quickly fell in love with the people in the village in which she was working and made the commitment to spend not just three weeks working in their kindergarten classroom, but three months instead. It wasn’t an easy sight for her to take in however, seeing the level of poverty that these Tanzanian families faced was a difficult pill to swallow. Sinead became determined to improve the quality of life of the Tanzanian families.
Returning to the United States long enough to move her belongings back to Ohio from her previous home in New York, Sinead quickly returned to Tanzania with a goal to specifically help the women who couldn’t afford as little as the cost of a bus fare to the next city. The women she set out to help were supporting their families on a budget of $8 per week, and often times the women had up to seven children. It was no easy task, but Sinead began interviewing each of the women to see how their quality of life could be improved.
After extensive research on nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurialism, Sinead hoped to use what business strategies she had learned to fight the poverty that these families were facing. Sinead quickly set out to form Jishike Social Couture, jishike a Swahili word meaning “hold on to your strength,” an initiative to teach Tanzanian women how to crochet clothing and fashion accessories that Sinead could sell to Americans, in turn providing the Tanzanian women 30% of the revenues, the remainder going back into the organization for new materials and projects. Jishike Social Couture began by making booties for babies and evolved into making fashionable clutches and handbags.
Jishike Social Couture has been making handbags since 2009 and began with a program of nine Tanzanian women, now growing to 22 women. Sinead’s program strives to teach Tanzanian women responsibility in handling their income as well as the value of their work; the better the product that the women are able to produce, the more profitable it will be for them. Being part of the program means that the women have agreed to not spend the money they earn on drugs or alcohol which has helped create a tremendous change in the lifestyles and demeanor of the women. Sinead wants nothing more than to create opportunity for the women that she helps and allow them more opportunity to do what they desire.
If you would like to learn more about Jishike Social Couture, or to purchase any of the products produced by the organization, please visit http://www.JishikeSocialCouture.com.