FACS Spring Fashion Show Turns Heads Towards Tanzania
Liberty University is proving that helping those in need never goes out of style as the Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) Department prepares for the 12th annual FACS fashion show on AprIL 7, promoting this year’s charity called City of Hope.
International Executive Director of City of Hope, Regina Chacha, was able to speak to students and faculty about the program and its mission during a recent FACS meeting.
The City of Hope ministry is located in the remote village of Ntagacha in Tanzania. Founded in 2007, it was the brain child of Chacha and her husband John Chacha who has since passed away due to a tragic accident in 2015.
Chacha explained that Ntagacha, which has been known for things like clan-fighting and cow theft, had been her husband’s home village. After years of being away from the village, she said that he had felt a calling to come back and reach the needs of his people by starting the City of Hope.
“After my husband died, a lot people didn’t think the mission would go on because he was such a strong leader,” Chacha said. “But the Lord had been preparing me and another young man, Hudson, who is now our director, and things are moving forward.”
The organization now includes a children’s home for approximately 100 orphans and a primary school for 450 students where they are able to learn about the Christian faith. Recently they have also opened the Dr. John Chacha Secondary School and Institute of Leadership that ChaCha said has been named in honor of her husband’s memory.
“In all of this we are really seeing a change. We don’t see the fighting that we saw when we first started and more people are believing in the Lord and finding out what it means to be a Christian,” Chacha said.
Chacha’s daughter, Tenzi Chacha, a former Liberty student, won awards for designing in three of Liberty’s fashion shows and is also highly involved with City of Hope. Now, she teaches sewing and design classes to young women in Ntagacha.
Having this connection with Liberty, Tenzi contacted assistant FACS professor Matalie Howard asking for some reusable feminine pads to be designed for girls at the school and who live in the orphanage.
Howard said that her fashion students worked diligently throughout the fall semester so that the pads would be ready to be presented to Tenzi at the spring fashion show.
“She asked us for sixty,” Howard said. “We made over six hundred.”
In regards to the fashion show, Chacha announced having arranged for about twelve girls from the village to perform during intermission to sing a collection of songs led by Chacha’s daughter. Each girl will also be wearing outfits fashioned by Tenzi herself.
Articles of clothing such as skirts, scarves and headbands that have been specially made by Tenzi’s students will be for sale at the show to raise money for City of Hope.
For Liberty students or anyone else who wants to get involved with the mission in a deeper way, Regina Chacha said that they do offer both long-term and short-term volunteer opportunities.
“You wouldn’t normally think that fashion and ministry go together, but when you place your gifts and talents into the hands of the Lord amazing things can happen,” Chacha said.