Matendo Nzika, Dolls & Lions Project
Crocheting Soft and Cuddly Dolls to Hundreds of Refugee Children at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya
Meet Matendo Nzika, a 32-year old Congolese refugee living in Kakuma, a refugee camp located in Northwestern Kenya. She fled her home country of Democratic Republic of Congo with her three children and four nieces and nephews because of the political strife and insecurities there.
While Matendo is busy rebuilding her life at Kakuma as a single mother of seven, she is also bringing comfort and solace to hundreds of other refugee children living at the camp. She is the Team Leader for a crochet toy project called Dolls & Lions, started in 2020 by South African-born, Australian-resident
.The goal of Dolls & Lions is to give soft, hand-made, crocheted toys to children ages 3 to 7 in Kakuma Refugee Camp. The project was started in October 2020 after Elsa (who develops online training materials in various subjects for consumption worldwide including at Kakuma) discovered there was a lack of suitable toys for the children to play with at a training center where mothers learn needlework and English.
As Elsa puts it, “Apart from the basic and immediate therapeutic benefits of cuddling a soft toy, the long-term impact of imaginative play includes building empathy, which improves social skills such as conflict resolution and parenting later in life. There is also the therapeutic and financial benefit to the toymakers to consider, so the plan was extended for the team to provide toys to the wider community.”
The idea of creating cuddly and soft dolls to play with instead of the plastic dolls that were available locally at the market took hold. If she could also employ local crafters to make them at Kakuma, the impacts would be even greater. All she needed was a local partner.
Enter Matendo! Matendo, who is a highly skilled craftswoman with experience crocheting dolls, arts and crafts, and mat making, was a perfect on-the-ground partner for Elsa.
The two of them have been working collaboratively as project partners ever since. Elsa delivers the funding for the team so they can purchase yarn and hooks locally. The team then uses those locally-purchased supplies to crochet roughly 20 dolls per month. Dolls are then distributed every few months.
The Project is so popular that the team has grown to include three crochet artists. Matendo is the Team leader, Khalid is the adminstrator, and Mercy and Zawadi are team members. There is also a crocheter-in-training: Mama Joseph. As team leader, Matendo’s job is to teach the team how to crochet, raise funds, conduct outreach to parents, and communicate with parents about doll distribution days.
To date, more than 800 crocheted toys have been given to children and another 80 crocheted toys will be ready for delivery this July (2024). There is a waiting list for children to receive dolls. The project is funded almost entirely by Elsa and her network. The opportunities to impact more children are vast. But for additional funding, the project could employ additional team members and distribute more dolls.
Matendo’s dream is to expand the program. “I want to teach girls who are deaf how to crochet and the boys how to do arts and crafts.” She also wants to open a daycare to help single mothers like her with the responsibilities of childcare so that they can learn skills and generate income.
In her free time, Matendo is very social, loves making friends, and listening to music. As a single mother with seven children to care, sometimes she is unable to meet all of their needs, sometimes not even basic needs. Her situation is futher complicated by the fact that some of her children have physical disabilities. The challenges of juggling motherhood and a social enterprise for Matendo are persistent. Yet, she perseveres, crocheting dolls for children to snuggle and enjoy while dreaming of other ways she can continue to give back to the community.
Her advice to other ChangeMakers: “Have the heart to listen and also give support where needed. And, when I talk of support it doesn’t mean only financial: all types of support can help depending upon the need.”
Who Inspires Matendo?
Where in the world is Matendo?
Matendo lives with her seven children at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. According to the UNHCR website, “Kakuma Refugee Camp is located in the North-western region of Kenya. The camp was established in 1992 following the arrival of the “Lost Boys of Sudan”. During that year, large groups of Ethiopian refugees fled their country following the fall of the Ethiopian government. Somalia had also experienced high insecurity and civil strife causing people to flee.” The Camp is the second largest refugee camp in Kenya and is the temporary home of approximately 250,000 people. Just under 10% of all refugees living in Kenya are Congolese with the vast majority being Somalian or South Sudanese.
Wow. Very powerful and inspiring. I know that refugee camp very well and understand the impact the dolls project will have on the children there. Bravo