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Article updated: 11/29/2012 8:40 AM

Re:new offers refugee women fellowship, sewing skills and employment

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Nancy Mwendwa, a Re:new employee from Kenya who now lives in Wheaton, looks over items in the store.

Bev Horne | Staff Photographer

Re:new founder Rebecca Sandberg shows one of the messenger bags now being featured to raise awareness of refugees.

Bev Horne | Staff Photographer

Rebecca Sandberg, left, works with Nigora Saidova, a Turkish woman from Russia, as Saidova sews a messenger bag.

Bev Horne | Staff Photographer

Gulnora Fozilova, a Turkish refugee from Russia, sews a messenger bag at Re:new in Glen Ellyn.

Bev Horne | Staff Photographer

About this Article

As a wife of a relief worker in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2001, Rebecca Sandburg wondered what skills she had to help. She found a niche in a program that taught refugee women to sew to support their families. Transported to Wheaton six years later, Sandberg again felt displaced until she realized that there were refugee women here who needed similar help. So, three years ago, she started Re:new.