Our History

The idea started with  Omari Swedi. Mr Swedi learned Tailoring to support himself and his family but he was working as a discipline maker in school.  There, he saw some students and some pupils are being absent at school, not regularly attending classes due to the lack of school equipments and others were wearing torn uniforms ( majendes in our local language). Mr Swedi is originally from Democratic Republic of Congo. He flew civil war in its Eastern Congo.  Swedi once lived in Nyarugusu camp Tanzania then moved to Kakuma Refugees camp Kenya given his private reasons.

Then mr Swedi started sewing for those students whose uniforms were torn apart. It came about that when  the head teacher realised that absenteism was reduced and that pupils started to stream in a massive number again, then he asked teachers who was behind the changes or who caused the changes, the teachers said to him it was mr Swedi that studied the problem and solved it by tailoring the uniforms of students.  Then mr Swedi was given more he needed to sew so many uniforms of refugees in Kakuma Refugees camp Kenya. 

As a result,  the information was spreading the camp wide, then, the parents,  community leaders and head masters decided to give him more work. He could sew uniforms of 4 schools in Kakuma. Then they told government authorities in Kenya about Swedi his Efforts to help his community. As a result,  Swedi was called to the police to be put under oath and Swear before governmental authorities that he will not mistreat, rape, or jeopardise the progress of student girls that come to him often to beg support of clothes by impregnanting them. Swedi agreed and swore he will not do anything wrong to his clients. 

Then mr Swedi was officially allowed, recognised to do his job of tailoring.  Then invented a NGO that could help people to sew their uniforms and to generate income and he called it Hand to Hand Unity for Vulnerable. Mr Swedi's ideas was supported by other refugees in Kakuma and they started to Volunteer in his iniative. Mr Swedi got resettled to Germany where he met Mutakwa Elias, a goal oriented, purpose driven, zealous uy from Nyarugusu camp Kigoma Tanzania. Mutakwa Elias ran similar projects in Nyarugusu camp Kigoma Tanzania. He was program advisor of Cela a refugee organization in Nyarugusu camp Kigoma Tanzania that is helping many refugees there. Cela did a lot of projects in Nyarugusu through the leadership of Elias Mshoshi and Mutakwa Elias. Until now Cela is giving Small loans to help Nyarugusu refugees to auto-finance. Mr Swedi asked Mutakwa Elias to work together because of his experience and expertise and outstanding leadership in project design issues. Now Mutakwa Elias is coordinating HHUV to its success. Many people sensed the presence of Mutakwa Elias in HHUV and they believe that HHUV  will achieve its goals through his leadership. Today , Hand to Hand Unity for Vulnerable has a wide range of projects and we are willing to extend it till our home country Republic Democratic of Congo. 

In D.R.Congo, people have also the challenges of educating children in a quiet environment, some parents lack equipments needed for their children's education  due to ongoing or unceased wars created by strong nations in search of natural resources.  We therefore want to extend our Activities in our country because there are so many displaced women ,widows and orphans who need our support. For more details on what we aim to do, see our Program on this website.