SEWAID PHILIPINES

Our Sewaid workshop in the Philippines  is meeting the needs of the time, by making masks and other protective gear.

Our amazing Maggie and her team have already produced over 10,000 masks for the Army and other services , and are now also making full protective suits.  Maggie, you are wonderful and you have always responded to the needs in your community.

SEWAID FIJI

Peter Drysdale for our Sewaid workshop at Koriopeta Model Homes, has advised that they are also flat out making masks.

Also our shipment of new equipment that we sent them last month, is due to arrive about this time.  We have donated to them a new Singer Industrial sewing machine, a heavy duty Singer portable sewing machine, new Triumph over- locker plus cutting mats, rotary cutters etc. to upgrade their new sewing workshop.

PHOTOS FROM SEWAID PHILIPPINES (click to enlarge and read titles)

Because of changes in flights by Fiji Airlines, I only ended up with 5 hours in Fiji.  I took a cab to Lautoka where Peter Drysdale had agreed to meet me. We then went out to Koroipeta an visited the sewing workshop where some of the ladies had agreed to come and meet with me. The workshop is now run by a new Enterprise Manager Janet Fung, and I can see that Janet is on the ball and making a difference.

They were sewing their eco bags which looked good- more solid and professional than before , and also they were making an order of Days for Girls Kits.

The workshop was clean and well organised. The machines were clean and looking like they had been well looked after. However at least two of the Singer Traditions were giving trouble and my efforts to fix one were in vain. I will organise Glenn in Lautoka to fix them.

Peter showed me the new Enterprise building which is 75% finished and the sewing room will move into that when it is completed. At that time, I have agreed to supply some new sewing machines, overlockers and up-date their sewing accessories.

Even though it was pouring with rain, Koroipeta was looking magnificent. The orchards, the gardens, the roads and houses etc, all looking very organised. There are 241 houses now and Peter is planning a new section with another 140 houses. I take my hat off to Peter, he has done a marvellous job with this village!

Tony Castley  19/04/2019

Colourful Days for Girls kits in the making.

Congo DRC
We have for some time been discussing the possibility of a Sewaid teacher team visiting the Congo to help Lucy set up a sewing workshop. This is starting to progress a little more now that Ebola has been contained in the area, however there is still quite of number of hurdles to jump before this trip can advertised.

Ba Fiji
Alacoque Welsh, one of our Sewaid managers, and Gay Grillmeier from the Gosford North DFG group. will be going back to BA, Fiji again in September to give some further training to one of our sewing groups there.

REECH Cambodia
Deidra from DFG Gosford North also advised that their Mooney Mooney satellite group, also donated 100 sewing kits and 25 Hygiene kits to Jenny Knight of REECH Cambodia. Sewgroup had previously helped Jenny with sewing machines and equipment for her Cambodia project.

Photos: Lucy Hopwood Brown from “Hands Up Congo ” centre, Days for Girls group leaders, Dee and Deidra, left and right, with the colourful bags containing 350 DFG hygiene kits and 100 sewing kits.
Jenny Knight (red) and the Mooney Mooney DFG salellite group.
Header photo : One of the DFG Gosford North ladies busy overlocking the liners on one of their Triumph high speed over-lockers .

The featured photo above is of Kiji completing her Days For Girls Ambassador training online !
The photos below are
1.simple children’s dresses the ladies made
2.Tina shows how to make bags from the yellow polyprope we gave them

Busy time for Sewaid. Currently we have 3 projects on the go.
Ba Fiji.
We have six of our lovely volunteers teachers in Fiji this week, teaching the Ba Women’s forum ladies, how to sew school uniforms and more advanced bags and purses. They are Alacoque Welsh project manager. Tina Latham head teacher, Jennifer Fletcher, Gay Grillmeier and Cheryl Nelson.
Tina also took the opportunity to teach the Days for Girls hygiene training and as a result five Ba ladies are now qualified in this.
The photo is of a new complicated compendium that the women are making for a Government order. They are using local materials and each compendium takes up to a day to make. This is our third visit to this workshop and it is going exceptionally well- and they are have so many orders for work, they can hardly keep up! Congratulation to our wonderful teachers.
Uganda
This weekend we have a team of volunteers from the SchoolforLife foundation at our warehouse preparing 1000’s of items we will send to Uganda in a 40’ container in the next week or so. Many thanks to Panalpina who have donated this freight to Uganda. We will have photos and more detail in our next report.

Cambodia
We have just sent 10 rolls of PUL fabric along with some other Days for Girls supplies to Melbourne to be included in a container that DIK in Melbourne is sending to Cambodia. These supplies will go to our Sewaid workshop in Pursat. There will be more about this in later reports.

Tony Castley

SewAid Team
Alacoque Welsh – Project Manager, Rotary E-club of Greater Sydney
Tina Latham- Training Manager – Rotary Club of Kincumber & Days for Girls Avoca.
Vera Liondas- Sewing Teacher – Rotary Club of Holroyd & Days for Girls Holroyd
Gay Grillmeier -Sewing Teacher& Days for Girls Gosford North
Karenne Norling –Sewing teacher -Rotary E-club of Greater Sydney
Jenny Fletcher- Sewing teacher –Days for girls Taree
Sandra and Tony Castley- Sewaid & Rotary E-club of Greater Sydney.

In this programme we taught 16 ladies from the Ba Women’s Community Forum how to sew Days for Girls Kits, gift items such a bags and purses, and some basic dressmaking.
The Forum has a very good facilities, in a modern building originally donated by a Japanese organisation. The large sewing room had 5 older domestic machines in poor condition, one working overlocker, and 5 high speed industrial machines of which almost none of the ladies could use. SewAid brought them 6 new domestic machines and 2 new overlockers and we were able to repair some of the existing machines. In additional we brought with us a large amount of sewing equipment such as cutting mats, rotary cutters etc. and heaps of fabric – which was kindly all funded by Alacoque to get them started.

Ba is a small town about 39 minutes East of Lautoka in Fiji. Fiji is an Island country in the South Pacific. It is popular holiday destination for people from Australian and New Zealand, and while there are a large number of 4 and 5 star Resorts, the basic population live at a low economic standard. While the minimum wage is officially FJ$5.00 (US$2.50) an hour, many of the women are paid much less than that. Some years ago there were a number of International clothing factories in Fiji, but today most all of them have left. However while the local people struggle to make ends meet, they are always smiling and friendly. The Ba ladies were a wonderful, group to work with, and very appreciative of the skills we taught them. However the pace of life is very slow – called Fiji time, and while the program was to start promptly at 9am Monday, many wandered in much later. But as we only had one week to teach them we soon introduced them to Sydney time and the teaching and progress moved along much quickly after that.

A lot was achieved in just 5 days, and at the end of the week, the ladies had made 30 complete Days for Girls kits and many more shield and liners, several different bags, including one attractive bags made entirely on the overlocker, purses and some dressmaking was started with emphasis on how to use commercial patterns. Gay spend a lot of her time teaching the ladies all about the overlockers, how to use them, and how to service them, While Tina concentrated on making sure they knew how to make the DFG kits correctly.

We were told originally that all the women chosen could sew, but actually many of them had little sewing knowledge or experience and that slowed us down a little, However it was a very successful week and we have left them with enough skills to become a DFG group or enterprise, and as well make some saleable items which are being introduced to the resort shops. At this stage we are expecting to make a follow up visit next year.

Good news is that they have already received an order for 100 DFG kits from an international charity at US$9,95 each and at that price they will be able to pay the sewers a reasonable fee, and have something left for the Forum.

A big thank you to all our wonderful volunteer teachers and to Alacoque our project manager, and to Hobbysew Australia and our other sponsors.
Tony Castley

SewAid supplied five new sewing machines and 2 new overlockers to the group who are very appreciative and very excited about these new skills they are learning. On Wednesday we were joined by some teachers from local schools as well as the local press and dignitaries, and Vera and Tina gave a presentation on the hygiene side of Days for Girls. The session started with the most beautiful singing from the Fijian ladies ( the video I will post later when I work out how ! ) , and the program concluded with a delicious lunch prepared by the ladies.
A full report and more photos will be posted shortly.
Tony Castley , SewAid Founder.

Dates and people

Glenda Bones our head volunteer teacher , Jan31st – February 14^th – 15 days;    Judy Jones volunteer teacher Jan 31^st – February 6^th – 7 days;    Sharon Tunks volunteer teacher – and partner Max , Feb 5^th-February 13^th -6 days;     Sandra and Tony Castley – February 4^th – Feb 13^th 9 days

Accommodation:

Glenda, Judy, Sharon and Max all stayed at the home of Linda Peterson  who kindly lent them her home as she is stationed in Suva at present. Linda works for Cardno International as their Social Responsibility Manager in charge of 14 Pacific Island countries.

TC and SC stayed at the Tanoa Waterfront hotel except for 3 nights in Suva – 2 nights at the Grand Pacific Hotel ( beautiful ) and one night at the Shangri-la resort (not so good).

Sewaid workshop at Model Homes Koroipita

We established this workshop by training 25 women to sew back in August 2015 and this initial training was held in the main hall. Since then, the sewing machines and overlockers etc. which we originally brought with us, have been well set up in two separate Rota Homes nearby to the hall , with a bench around the walls for the sewing machines and a good operational table in the centre, plus good lights and power-points. This is a very good set up for sewing, the only problem we found was the extreme heat at the time and no air conditioning. One room had two small fans.

Students

Of the 25 we originally taught, but only 10 sewers were available for the us to work with this time. And we believe only 4 have been attending the workshop on a regular basis. Of the 10 ladies we worked with this time, only one was what we would call a really good sewer. So as a result, the products being sewn were just Eco Bags and Days for Girls Kits rather than the more advanced clothing more familiar with our SewAID workshops. So obviously we had more development work to do here.

Sewing Skills

When we left in August the bulk of the ladies were sewing reasonably advanced clothes, skirts, dresses, shirts etc, and this trip was to further increase their skills to make high quality clothing and accessories. But now there was only one sewer with these skills so initially it was a matter of teaching basic sewing skills again. Our teachers taught them how to make the Eco bags better and faster and they also taught them how to make the Days For Girls kits. The 4 regular ladies had already started on the Rotary order for Days for Girls Kits, however while our teachers were there, a lot more DFG kits were made, in fact a total of 80 were completed.

Sewing machines and overlockers

The machines appear to have been well looked after. The 20 new Singer machines we brought over in August were all still sewing well- no trouble. However the 5 second hand overlockers we originally bought over were not so good. One Janome 204D had a broken knife which I replaced, another Janome 303 had a motor completed stopped working and another Elna 34D had a very noisy motor which appeared to be one the way out. I called into Elizabeth Sewing Machines and met and talked with the owner Glenn and mechanic Mitish. Hours were sent trying to fit new motors to the overlockers but without success as there were small differences. Mitish then pulled the Elna motor apart and fixed it. He put it all back together and adjusted it and it overlocked beautifully. So I left the Janome 204 with him and he said he would have go at fixing that one too. Glenn changed me just $50 for 5 hours work, which was very generous and much appreciated.  Peter will pick up the Janome when ready and tell me how much I owe him. So currently 4 working overlockers at the workshop and back to five when this last Janome is fixed.

Days for Girls Project

My Rotary club, the E-club of Greater Sydney, had been trying to organise a DFG project with the RC of Lautoka. However the RC of Lautoko club is very low on members. Akisi the President had resigned and Peter told us the club was not very functional at the moment. Then by accident we ran into the Losaline Qiolevu the secretary of a newly formed Rotaract club, and quickly we were able to re-start the project with the Rotaract club. We had several meetings with the Rotaractors, Secretary Losalini, President Melissa and Fund Raising Chair Luke , and they quickly got in touch with Jasper Girls High, and also contacted the Ministry of Education and obtained written approval to run the DFG project at the school. It was decided to roll-out the DFG program to the boarders at the school, which were approximately 250 girls.

Days For Girls Kits

We ordered 250 kits off Model Homes in three lots of 80, 80 and 90 and our teachers started to show the workshop sewers how to speed up and apply production line techniques. On the final Friday we delivered 80 kits to the Models Homes office. It is expected that all 250 might be finished in about 3 weeks.

Materials for DFG kits

A lot of work was done in trying to find cheaper and better fabrics for the kits. The main need was for good quality 100% cotton which in the retail fabric shops  was expensive. Fortunately due to the great research work Sharon did, we were able to eventually find all fabrics  (except the PUL) at very good prices .

ECO Bags

The sewers are also making Eco bags made from off-cuts received from the local garment factories.

Sewing Room Manager

Much discussion was held regarding the need for a sewing room manager such as we have in other Sewaid workshops. There were a number of possibilities discussed, such as a graduate or undergraduate from the School of Fashion at the University, and we even cam across ladies living in the Koroipita village with sewing management experience. This information was left with the Koroipita Model Homes management.

Marketing and potential orders

This was possibly the biggest surprise of all, the amount of work that is available for the sewing room. It appears that Fiji has a lot of work for sewers. Some contacts were made with companies wanting garments made by  home sewers , and this information again was passed onto the Koroipita management.

We also began some incredibly interesting discussions with Linda Peterson regarding Days for Girls kits for 14 Pacific countries, but this is something we will be investigating more fully .

The cruise ships also run day tours to Koroipita but the time is very short however the visitors are very keen to buy and bought $170 worth in just a few minutes. But there are  some complications with  this , but Peter is going to look into it further.

It would therefore seem that there is plenty of work and a good manager would be cost effective. All in all this is so different to other countries where we have to work so hard to find sales outlets for the goods that are sewn.

Summary:

It wasn’t the two weeks of advanced training we had planned, but our teachers worked very hard to improve the skills of the ladies that are working in the sewing room now. We are sorry to see many of our best sewers have left, but we hope that some of these may return as the workshop takes on new jobs.

We do hope that the sewing workshop will now grow and prosper but this may be slow until such time that  a suitable manager can be employed.

We are very pleased that the Days for Girls program is going to get rolled out to the boarders at the Jasper Girls High School and we loved meeting the young Rotaractors who are so enthusiastic and energetic.

Thankyou

Many thanks to Glenda who organised this whole visit and stayed 15 days. To Glenda Judy and Sharon and Max who all came at their own cost and worked so hard, in what was very very hot conditions, thank you so much- you are very special people.

We again thank Peter ,Susan and Vika at Model Homes for their help and assistance and wish them all the best for the future development of the Koroipita SewAid workshop.

Tony Castley 13/02/2016

This new Sewaid workshop which was only established last year, is already receiving  steady orders for bags and Days for Girls kits, and so our teachers will give the sewers some further help with sewing techniques for these items as well as some  training for some new products  for which we have potential orders for them from Australia.

Once again many thanks these teachers who are dedicated to ensure that the products made at our Sewaid workshops are of the highest quality. Thanks Glenda , Judy and Sharon. ! Sandra and I will come over and visit you while you are there- have a great trip.

Best regards Tony Castley