Tucked away in their homes or hung on laundry lines, South Sudanese women of the Kakuma refugee camp display some of their most valued possessions - the embroidered bedsheets or Milaya. The 77 Percent meets one embroideress and young mother who has spent most of her life in the refugee camp to learn more about the craft.
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00:00As South Sudanese, making these milayas are very important, especially for women.
00:05If you are to be called a woman in South Sudan culture,
00:08the first thing you need to know how to make the milaya,
00:11leave alone cooking, you need to know how to make a milaya.
00:15Practised by the Akoli, the Dinka, Shiluk and Nua,
00:18the craft of embroidering bedsheets or milaya is passed down from generation to generation,
00:24from mother to daughter, even hundreds of kilometres away from their homeland.
00:30In the refugee camp of Kakuma, in northern Kenya,
00:33young South Sudanese women still spend their days stitching away at the intricate designs.
00:39Making milaya shows respect for your mother,
00:43that she really taught you the best way as a woman.
00:46And making this milaya also is a symbol of respect to your in-laws.
00:51When they marry you, you have something to show,
00:53that I came with this, I'm ready for marriage.
00:57My name is Anna Sebit, I'm a South Sudanese.
01:01I came to this camp with my mother when I was just two years old, that was in 1994.
01:07Having spent 30 years in the refugee camp,
01:10Anna went to school here and even studied social work through an online university.
01:15But her refugee status doesn't allow her to leave the camp or earn a proper wage,
01:20and so her embroidery skills are a lifeline.
01:23Making this bedsheet, we keep them as women,
01:26because sometimes when you stay, when there is a need of money,
01:31then you start finding for customers, it's like savings.
01:34One milaya can take over a month to complete,
01:37and while not everyone in the refugee camp can afford a new one,
01:41Anna even rents out her milayas or sells them to customers travelling abroad.
01:47Drawn and designed by local artists, the signature flowers adorn most milayas,
01:52the most personal features, however, are reminders of the cultural origins.
01:57This is for my mother, I kept this bedsheet a long, long time.
02:02This zebra here symbolises the cultural animal that you have,
02:06wild animal that you have, that shows the symbol of unity, strength and all that.
02:11This is a mace, this is my own, I made it myself.
02:15Actually, I'm from Achele and we cultivate a lot of mace,
02:18and we love mace, mace posho,
02:21that's why I just like making this as a symbol of being agriculturalist people.
02:27For the women here, it's this craft that feeds their families and pays the school fees,
02:32and for Anna, it's a way of keeping the culture of South Sudanese and her mother's tradition alive.