Samuel Mahari got a tailoring job after a Re:Build training in English language and tailoring  

When he first arrived in Kampala from Ethiopia, Samuel Mahari, did not know what life had in store for him in a foreign land thousands of miles away from home.

‘‘You may not know what to do; cities are big places,’’ said Mahari, 24, an Eritrean who came to Uganda from Ethiopia.

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, Mahari worked in a garment factor where he worked on only shirt sleeves. ‘‘I knew how to cut clothes but not how to tailor, ’he said.

In a shop in the bustling Kampala neighborhood of Kabalagala, Mahari is now a tailor, making beautiful dresses for weddings and parties.

How did an uncertain life in Kampala, far away from home, get a better direction?  

‘‘My friend told me about courses at Makasi’’. Makasi Rescue Foundation in Kampala is a Re:Build ‘Service Delivery’ partner.

Mr. Mahari enrolled at Makasi to study tailoring and English language for four months.  His English language has improved as well as his tailoring, skills that he now uses to earn a living.

‘‘I knew very little English when I came to Uganda,’’ he said in between working on a dress for a client. ‘‘Now I can speak some English’’.

Confident with his improved skills, Mahari walked to a shop and said he was ‘a good tailor’. The owner of the shop, an Eritrean refugee, gave him an assignment to make a piece of cloth which Mahari did and was hired.

‘‘From what I earn I can buy food, pay rent, and meet my transport costs to come to work’’.

Mahari hopes to one day open his own shop and become an ‘‘international name’’.