Three women knitting their way to independence in Gitega

Needles move steadily in a small workshop in Gitega, keeping pace with incoming orders. Surrounded by balls of wool and knitting machines, Imelde Niyonzima, Sylvane Nahayo and Sophie Nizigama make clothes for children and adults.

The workshop provides the three women with an income and greater control over their working lives. It is also the business they established after years of using their skills to work for others.

“Working for others has its limitations,” says Niyonzima, 36, chair of Saint François d’Assise Abagendana Ubumuga Turashoboye, whose Kirundi name means “people with disabilities are capable”.

Before starting the enterprise, the women earned irregular incomes fulfilling orders for others. They decided to combine their skills and establish their own business, which has now operated for three years. The three partners work there permanently and hire temporary workers when orders increase.

From training to their own business

Their journey began several years earlier, when they learnt to sew before turning to machine knitting.

A two-month training course in Rwanda gave them the knitting skills they needed for the venture.

Nahayo, 38, contracted polio at the age of two. She later underwent rehabilitation at the Rutana National Centre for Prosthetics and Rehabilitation (CNAR), where she was guided towards vocational training.

She learnt to sew before meeting Nizigama.

Nizigama, 40, has experienced mobility difficulties since early childhood. After receiving care at a rehabilitation centre, she trained in pattern-cutting and sewing before joining her future business partners to learn knitting.

Niyonzima acquired her disability at 12, when she was shot during political violence in Burundi. After extensive medical treatment in Gitega, she learnt to sew and later took up knitting.

After returning from Rwanda, the women worked with a parish in Gitega, fulfilling orders without equipment of their own.

Their desire for independence led them to apply to the Programme for Economic Empowerment and Youth Initiative (PAEEJ).

Niyonzima and Nahayo say the financing they received enabled them to buy their first machines.

“We started our business with initial capital of BIF7.8 million (about US$2,600),” Niyonzima says. The financing has since been repaid in full.

The workshop has 10 knitting machines: seven on the premises and three stored elsewhere.

Schools provide most of its business, although the women also fulfil orders for companies, restaurants and individuals. Depending on the design, one worker can produce about three children’s jumpers or two adult jumpers a day. When school orders are steady, the workshop produces at least 200 jumpers a month, Niyonzima says.

An adult jumper sells for about BIF60,000 (US$20), while children’s jumpers cost between BIF25,000 and BIF40,000 (US$8–US$13), depending on the size and order volume.

Sales do not translate directly into earnings. The business must buy wool, maintain its machines and pay temporary workers. Assembly and finishing cost BIF4,000 (about US$1.30) per garment.

Even after these costs, the business helps the three partners cover household expenses.

“Even the smallest amount I earn from making a knitted item allows me to meet my basic needs, such as buying soap,” Nizigama says.

Niyonzima now contributes to household bills and her children’s education, while income from knitting helped Nizigama build a small corrugated-iron house on the hill where she grew up.

The workshop’s most immediate challenge is obtaining raw materials. Some orders require colours of wool unavailable in Gitega, Bujumbura or Ngozi. The partners must wait for imported stock or source materials through contacts in neighbouring countries. Limited working capital can prevent them from buying supplies quickly enough to fulfil an order.

Machine repairs create another bottleneck. Niyonzima says spare parts are scarce in Burundi and few local technicians can repair some of the equipment. Machines may have to be sent to Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania or Kenya for specialist repairs. A new machine costs about BIF1.5 million (US$500).

Access to customers is also uneven. Nizigama believes discrimination based on disability may have affected the outcome of a tender to supply school uniforms.

“It is common for us to be sidelined in favour of people without disabilities,” she says.

The women want to be assessed on the quality, price and reliability of their work, rather than on assumptions about their disabilities. Better access to working capital, equipment, raw materials and procurement opportunities, they argue, would allow them to compete for larger orders.

Investing in economic independence

The partners want to expand the workshop, improve their sewing and finishing techniques and add traditional clothing and embroidery to their range. They are seeking additional finance to do so.

Their experience reflects a much wider employment gap. Burundi’s 2018 law on the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities guarantees equal access to employment in principle. In practice, however, “there are no specific measures to promote the recruitment of people with disabilities in either the civil service or the private sector”, according to the African Disability Rights Yearbook.

For the women, economic independence means more than earning an income. It allows them to make decisions about their work, contribute to household expenses, invest and plan for the future. Niyonzima hopes the business will encourage other people with disabilities to pursue their own livelihoods.

“Decent work is the only way to secure one’s livelihood and provide for one’s old age,” she says.

Their ambition extends beyond the three partners. Nahayo has begun training other women with disabilities in knitting, cost management and customer relations.

“Before, I depended on my brothers. Now, I’m the one who pays the bills,” Niyonzima says.

“I don’t want to be a burden to anyone any more. My knitting is my freedom,” Nizigama says.

Since its creation in 1989, the Union of People with Disabilities in Burundi (UPHB) says it has supported 23,280 people through health, education and livelihood initiatives.

According to UPHB representative Alexis Hatungimana, men account for 55 per cent of these beneficiaries and women for 45 per cent.

Separately, UPHB reports reaching 21,480 people through community-based initiatives, 53 per cent of them men and 47 per cent women.

Hatungimana says people with disabilities who had long faced isolation and discrimination have formed organisations. UPHB now has 58 member organisations whose members participate in sporting, cultural and social activities.

Members are also active in retail, basket-weaving, welding, dressmaking and hairdressing, he says.

UPHB says its interventions have reduced the number of people with disabilities who rely on begging, although it could not provide supporting data. People with disabilities remain largely excluded from the formal labour market.

The national context remains challenging. According to Burundi’s sixth national report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, only 12.8 per cent of Burundian women had access to a bank account or formal financial service in 2024. The Bank of the Republic of Burundi reports an even lower rate among women with disabilities.

Nahayo says empowerment must produce concrete changes in daily life: “Empowerment isn’t just a word you put in project proposals. It’s an income at the end of the month. It’s the ability to say ‘no’ to an abusive husband, to pay for medicine, to choose what you eat.”

For the three partners, progress has practical measures: regular orders, working machines and enough capital to buy materials when customers need them.

In the Gitega workshop, each completed garment represents both a sale and a step away from dependence. The women have shown they can produce, find customers, repay financing and train others.

Their next challenge is securing the materials, functioning equipment and market access needed to turn a small workshop into a durable business.

Written by Ferdinand Mbonihankuye for bird story agency