Sewaid Team Opportunities 2019

Dear Sewaid Volunteer,
We have three interesting opportunities for you to share your sewing skills and have a wonderful experience at the same time.

Passat Cambodia- January/February
In January Sustainable Cambodia will have another tour of Cambodia with special days at their project in Passat. SewAid has a sewing workshop at Sustainable Cambodia and Sewaid volunteers have made this annual tour in 2012, 2017 and 2018.
This is not a SewAid team project as such , but more a tour with a opportunity to see and experience the good works of the NGO Sustainable Cambodia , and also to have a few days in our sewing workshop in Pursat helping out and giving further training.
The tour is led by SC’s founder Richard Allen from Florida and his wife Susan, and usually there are approximately 50 people on the tour, couples and singles, Rotarians and others, incl. many Australian. It is an excellent short tour of Cambodia at an amazingly low cost, and an opportunity to see and experience an NGO that is really making a difference and to see and work in one of our sewing workshops.
There will be two tours in 2019, one January and another in February. They are 11 day tours starting in Phnonm Penh and finishing in Siem Reap. All our Sewaid people who have been on this tour have had a wonderful time ! If you are interested give me a call or drop me an email, and I will send you all the details of these trips.

Noro,Solomon Islands -February/ March
We will have a SewAid team going to Solomon Islands in late February for 12 days. This Program will be at Noro a small town on New Georgia Island. Our Vera Liondas went to Noro as a SewAid Volunteer earlier this year and ran a small starter program, which was very well received and now they would like us to come back and set up a full SewAid Workshop. The project is with SolTuna, a tuna factory in Noro which employs around 1,000 women many of whom live in the dormitories provided by the company, and it is in one of these that we will be establishing this permanent sewing workshop for the women. SolTuna will also make it available to non employees under certain conditions.

We are fortunate in that SolTuna are fully behind this project and as they did last time, they will give us full support while we are there, including an opportunity to tour the very interesting tuna factory.

Vera has kindly offered to be the RAWCS Project Manager and application are now open for you to apply for this team which will be approximate 6 to 8 teachers. Ideally we will have 3 to 4 experienced teachers from previous projects and 3 to 4 new volunteers. We will be teaching 20 to 30 women to sew and craft. The program will be divided into 3 main sections, beginner sewing – basic skirts, shirts, aprons, and children’s clothes, and perhaps some Days for Girls although DFG is not a focus of this project; an advanced sewing group to teach school uniforms, sports outfits, work uniforms, formals, cultural dresses, gift ware , homewares etc., and another group to teach craft, such as needlework, appliqué patchwork, crochet ,macramé, etc.
If you apply, please state which of these skills you are most experienced to teach.

The dates for this program are February 24th to March 9th . On March 8th, they will be having a large celebration for International Women’s Day, and some of the special cultural outfits will no doubt be made during the course .The costs to go to Solomon Island are higher that we have had with other Pacific island, so what we will do here is put a fixed cost for the volunteers of $2.000 and SewAid and Sultuna will finance the rest. Accommodation will be basic but fun. The temperatures will be hot, around 32 degrees of a day. The workshop has fans but no airconditioned.
Selection of volunteers is not first in, but more a matching of skills to what we want to teach. However, if you are interested please email or call me as soon as possible. As before we expect this to be another one of life’s great experiences !

East Timor, April 2019
In April we will be sending a SewAid teacher team to Oecusse , a small detached state in East Timor. “Detached” because it is separate to the main part of East Timor, as it is a small parcel of land in West Timor, but it is still part of East Timor. Confusing isn’t it – check your maps. From Dili we catch a small plane to Oecusse.

We have been invited to do this sewing program by Judy Charnaud who has lived and worked there for something like 14 years. Judy who is a member of my Rotary Club , is from the Northern Beaches in Sydney, and Judy spends 6- 9 months of each year in Oecusse helping the local people who are amongst the world’s poorest.

The teaching program will include teaching basic sewing , school uniforms, Days for Girls, and also teaching and instigating a sewing course for the local Technical school. Additionally we may also be teaching an assisting another Rotary sewing workshop in Dili , but more on that later.

I will be travelling to East Timor next month along with SewAid Manager Glenda Bones and teacher Sharon Tunks to finalise all the details of this project. The dates for this trip will be approximately April Ist to 14th but we will confirm this exactly shortly. Accommodation in Oecusse will be will be a small guest house run by an Australian, basic but comfortable. We envisage that we will have 8-10 days in Oecusse and a few days in Dili. Again East Timor is expensive to visit but we will again cap the cost to our Volunteers at $2,000 or less.

If you are interested in joining this team please contact Glenda or myself as soon as possible.
Certainly again it will be a great SewAid experience. Tony 0414 801 888, Glenda, and please check our website for updates.

Kiribati
The church group we have been talking to for some time, has advised that they are building a new sewing room which is expected to be finished early next year. As soon as we receive updated information on this, we will also be planning a small teacher team for Kiribati.

Regards
Tony Castley

Sewaid
www.sewaid
tonyc@sewgroup.com
0414801888