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Sheringham sewathon 2018 750CF

Sheringham sewing marathon helps Ugandan village

2018: A 12-hour Sew-athon took place at Lighthouse Community Church in Sheringham recently to create clothing and goods for a village in Uganda.  

Following the success of the previous Sew-athons, this year’s event, which was organised by the Reed People charity, took place on Saturday November 17 and, once again, many people from the community met together armed with sewing machines, threads and scissors to make items of clothing for the villagers of Lumpewe in Uganda.

 
More than 100 people dropped in on the day, all with various skills, willing to participate and all with loads of enthusiasm. Male volunteers were predominantly, but not exclusively, seconded to the kitchen to supply valuable refreshments which had been generously donated by many volunteers.
 
As well as continuing to provide the village women and teenagers with reusable sanitary wear; the sewing team recycled pillowcases to make dresses for the girls; and shorts for the boys out of t-shirts.  
 
Elaine Fisher from Reed People said “In total our fantastic community pulled together to produce 200 Sanitary towels, 51 dresses, 38 pairs of shorts and 15 skirts. A huge thank you to everyone who attended the Sewathon and donated items to enable this event to take place. We couldn’t do it without you!”
 
Following Pastor Musisi’s recent visit from Lumpewe it has been arranged (thanks to www.digitalink.media ) to send a video demonstration of how to make the re-usable sanitary protection so that the ladies in different areas of Uganda can learn this skill, as sanitary protection is not freely available there.
 
To raise funds for their work, Reed People has produced 2019 calendars for sale at the very reasonable price of £5.  They depict some of the school children and villagers in Lumpewe, and every picture tells a story of the Uganda journey over the last few years: 

January shows the children in school;
February shows two little girls in the dresses made from donated pillow cases;   
May shows the girls sewing their own sanitary protection using Reed People pattern and resources;
June shows the Reed People feeding programme. The blue bags are groceries; 

September shows the school kitchen where almost 300 are fed daily;
October shows a little boy with his water bottle. The charity has now installed a rainwater filtration system at the school, so the children get clean water to drink.  They are also allowed to take a bottle of clean water home and this project has almost eliminated water-borne typhoid from this region.   

 
reed people logo 450“Do make sure you get one as it is a good way to explain to your friends and family just what we are about” said Elaine.
 
The calendars are available from Lighthouse Community Church, 62 Cromer Road, Sheringham NR26 8RT
o
r by e-mailing:  elaine@reedpeople.org .
 
For more about Reed People, visit: http://reedpeople.org/
 
To read our previous story about Reed People, click here.



TonyRothe150Do you have a news story or forthcoming event relating to Christians or a church in North Norfolk?  

If so, e-mail tony.rothe@networknorwich.co.uk with details and, if possible a suitable picture. 


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