Meet the 86-year-old nun crafting scripture to life
Sister Paulina Owach has been making crafts for the last seven years. She uses the proceeds from the sales of such hangings to buy neccessities for her home. Photo by Cissy Makumbi
In 2008, then 79-year-old Paulina Owach, searching for a way to live contemplatively and also engage with the world took up crafting lessons that have changed her life.
At Rest home of the elderly sisters of Mary Immaculate of Gulu Archdiocese reception, one thing that will strike you are the beautiful paintings and wall hangings.
After brief consultations with the in-charge of the facility, Sister Ventorina Abio, 69, I am directed to 86-year-old Sister Paulina Owach. She, I am told, is the one with a midas touch.
Owach will not let anything slow her down. Though bound to a wheel chair, Sister Owach has for the last seven years been making craftwork which ranges from wall hangings to artifacts.
Stunned that at her age she can make such beautiful works, Owach simply rubbishes my doubts and instead wheels to her room only to return with an assortment of some of her works.
Among the products she makes are birthday cards, small hand bags for women, wall hangings and other customised crafts.
Asked why she did not start crafting earlier, Owach says she got the skills in 2008.
She adds: “It took three months to learn how to craft and now I can do just about anything with ease.”
getting it done
Eager to learn how she makes these art pieces, Owach explains that she uses everyday items such as card-boxes, markers, glue, banana fibres and paint.
She says the prices for the crafts range between Shs15,000 and Shs50,000.
Asked how she is able to get clients, Owach says this is her greatest challenge. She says she is not beat down by this constraint and as such sells the few that she can at the village market.
She adds: “Few people know what we do at the Rest-home. Our repeat clients are usually foreigners who visit during the summer. When they don’t visit, it means there are no major sales.”
Her dream is for her craftwork to be sold in the greater East African region.
Benefits
Owach says the money she makes is what the home uses to avail them with the basics at the home.
“We are a family, whatever one gets, we share it to address the various needs.”
Although she is not making much money, Owach is not complaining because this activity keeps her busy.
It takes her about three days to work on a piece which translates into 18 hours of work for her.
Challenges
Her biggest setback is an unstable market. She says: “The business is not growing at a fast rate, at times I make products and they stay for months before being bought.” She adds that lack of a crafts shop to display her pieces makes her to lose out on business.
She hopes to register more sales as well as mentor young people.
LIVING WITH Disability
One thing about Owach is that she will not let disability confine her. She says she lost her mobility in 1997.
“I was travelling back from Kenya. When I reached my destination I failed to stand…and I have not been able to do so since then.” Owach says to date, different doctors have failed to explain her predicament.
At the Home
Sister Vetorina Abio, the in-charge at Rest home of the elderly sisters of Mary Immaculate of Gulu Archdiocese says there are 13 people at the facility.
She says whenever Sister Owach sells her products they buy a few things that can see them through another day.
That aside, Owach is teaching her peers the art so that they can be self-sustaining.
Alice Akena, who bought some of the craft work, says she was amazed by Owach’s mastery.
“We have very many youth in the region, who keep lamenting about the effects of the war, instead of getting skills like these that can even see them through,”
We are tasking the church to see how best it can expose such talent to the wider community.
Certainly, these are welcome innovations, but while this is in the pipeline, Owach is determined to do all it takes to ensure that the place she calls home can afford the basics in life.
