Evelyn lives in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe with her two siblings and parents. Together with her friend Trish Makanhiwa,who has also made embroidery for this store, Evelyn helped Women Advocacy Project (WAP) to launch an ambitious program to empower girls by making soap and embroidery in 2018. She and Trish were the first “girl ambassadors” chosen by WAP and have been the face of the soap program in several videos and. They also led an emergency project to distribute soap and cooking oil during the height of the pandemic.

Evelyn has been equally active on the embroidery front and has organized trainings to produce the stories for The Zimbabwe Early Marriage Quilt and the Zimbabwe COVID Quilt. But money has been a big problem for her family. Her parents were both forced to stop trading during the pandemic and Evelyn herself had to drop out of school. But she has supplemented the family income by selling soap and this has enabled her two younger siblings to complete school. Evelyn herself is now studying to be a nurse but wants to continue embroidery. Finding a market for her blocks would certainly take the pressure off the family.