Anne, 42, is a single mother of four children in Kenya. After her older sister got pregnant as a high school student, their father vowed to never educate another daughter. 

Anne’s brother helped fund a tailoring course—without schooling, she would have had no marketable skills. For a while, Anne ran a sewing business. But then her sewing machine broke. During this time, her husband was away to find work in Nairobi; Anne didn’t have any source of income. 

On an early spring morning in Kent, Washington, a group of women are gathered around a tall cutting table, watching Sandy Appl demonstrate how to use a rotary cutter. The device, which looks a lot like a tiny pizza cutter, makes cutting strips of fabric as easy as drawing a line.