Empower Women | Protect the Planet

Yati is the youngest of three sisters and an older brother. Their father died when Yati was just a little girl, leaving her widowed mother to raise four children. The family survived on a meagre income from their mother growing vegetables and selling them. The eldest of the three children had to stop school at a young age, to work to help supplement income for the family. The money earned from their work also helped Yati through school. Yati is the only one of the four children who had the privilege of completing high school.

When Yati finished school (18 years old), she took a course in sewing, after which she went to work at a garment factory like her sister, Yani, where work hours were long and environment harsh.

When she got married, Yati quit her job to stay home to look after the baby. However, after 6 years of a very difficult marriage, where her husband was unfaithful and refused to bring money home, they divorced. Yati is now a single mother, raising her daughter on her own. 

To make ends meet, Yati returned to work - this time at a shoe factory, where the conditions are not any better than those at the garment factory. To survive financially, Yati now lives with her sister’s family and their elderly mother. She is thankful for the opportunity to supplement her meagre income from the factory job, by sewing FAVE Bags, which she does in the evenings and on weekends. Her hope is that this additional income will enable her to put her 9 year old daughter through high school, her biggest dream as a mother.