Mozambique: Maria Dalia Aurélia Thathuio


Date: October 9, 2018
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“My dream is to have a boutique to make the clothes and articles, and a hair salon where I go to work and also teach people how to do”

My name is Maria Dalia Aurelia Thathuio, I am 52 years old and I am the mother of a 6 years old girl.

Before meeting Gender Links, I would only work with sewing. So, after the formation of entrepreneurship in which I participated in 2014, I began to work with crafts. Now I make clothes, lining shoes, make bamboo vases, earrings and bracelets of local material.

With this training, I learned that the money of the business is not mine, I have to invest it so that the business can grow. Thanks to that, I was able to buy a land where I will build my establishment, because until then, I work on the porch of my father’s tent. Today in my community, there are people who ask me to teach them my work. I have two workers with me who help me in the work, but there is also a group of about 10 orphans, who come daily to learn from my art.

The main challenge I faced during this process was the failure of the machines. When they failed I would take them to the repair, but it takes a long time to come back, which conditioned my work. But when I bet on crafts, this time has come to be compensated with my production. Nowadays I can personally repair the machines when they are minor faults.

I participated in two Gender Links summits. In 2015 I was in the 2nd position in the category of entrepreneurship, and last year, 2017, I was in first place. The people of Gender Links who encouraged me were Mrs. Dalila, who gave us the training, and Dr. Alice Banze, who during the summits and meetings gave me much strength to continue doing my work.

My dream is to open a boutique for the making and selling of clothes and my handmade articles, but also to open a hairdressing salon where I can work and teach people how to do it. At this moment I have a space that I bought, and I already started preparing the articles for the salon. I have 4 hair clippers. I decided to start joining them slowly, so that when it’s time I’ll have everything ready.

I hope that Gender Links continues to support and help people. There are still many people who need to be empowered to discover their potential.