Student sponsorship

SOKO donates money every month towards student sponsorship at the Ukunda Youth Polytechnic (where SOKO is based). The Polytechnic have a number of students that are orphans and do not receive any financial support from their families, these are the students that SOKO is currently supporting. Here is a story of one of the students....

Christine has been studying Electronics at the Polytechnic for the past two years. Tragically last year her father died but her mother found a way to pay for her course fees alone, no longer having the support of her husband.

A few months ago Christine's mother suddenly died, this left Christine having to fend for herself.

Christine was determined to continue her studies at the Polytechnic, but now had no way of funding herself. Her extended family refused to help her so she ran up a debt of £100. Unfortunately, because of this debt the Polytechnic was unable to enter Christine for her exams.

A week ago Thomas, the manager of the Polytechnic, came to SOKO to ask for its support with Christine. SOKO has now agreed to cover the cost of Christine's exam fees and clear her debt enabling Christine to gain her qualification and increase her chances of getting a job once she finishes her studies.

SOKO's new machines have arrived!

At SOKO we have been waiting for a delivery of industrial sewing machines for the last 5 months; finally, last night the delivery arrived!

They were shipped all the way from England and boxed up incredibly securely. In fact they were almost too secure, which led to the transformation of Phillip from Master Tailor to Super-handy-man, so he took his hammer and screw driver and tackled the nails and huge staples. After some minutes struggling, the contents of all four cartons were revealed. Our new machinery for the workshop had arrived, including 3 industrial straight stitch machines, 1 button hole machine, 3 straight stitch machines, 1 cutting machine and an industrial iron, vacuum, steam unit.

All of us at SOKO are really excited about these new arrivals as they will speed up production and improve quality - definitely a milestone for all of us here!