SHINE Receives Donation of Sewing Machines

A donation of sewing machines was also made to another non-profit organization on the Ambergris Caye. Shaping Healthy Identities through Nurturing and Empowerment, better known as SHINE, was established back in 2014 and focuses on empowering women. The sewing machines add to the equipment available for the more than one hundred women who have are part of its artisan programme, EstHer. The donation was made by the Minister of Youth, Sports and E-Governance Kevin Bernard to Chelsie Munoz of SHINE.

Chelsie Munoz

Chelsie Munoz, SHINE

“There’s brokenness all over the world and we saw that there is a huge problem here in Belize with human trafficking, sexual abuse and women suffering and struggling financially. So we decided to expand or programme and include an artisan programme and it is called EstHer Belize, Establishing Her for More. The beautiful women, a part of our programme, to be who God created them to be. And through this artisan programme, we believe that we can help these women, our local Belizean women through education because education is really the key to a lot of our problems here. And we believe that we can help them by offering these courses free of charge. So we offer free sewing classes, jewellery making and now business classes because business is really important and women learning how to budget and to save and to invest their money the right way would be very helpful for them.”

Kevin Bernard

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Youth, Sports & E-Governance

“Very important to see that you have been able to touch the lives of many young women in this community, in terms of the artisan work that you do. Again, like you said, you have offered these things free of cost, but it shows that we have the humanitarian spirit in this country, people that care for others and that is what will make our towns and our communities and municipalities and this country grow.”