The fabric was from the shipment of assorted fabric we sent them , which was originally donated to us by a Tailor in Hong Kong.

Click on photo to Expand

Regards

Tony

We recently received these photos from Sister Sabina from the Catholic Convent in Oecusse East Timor .

Sister Sabina was one of our students at the 2019 Sewaid workshop in Dili, and it is wonderful to see these school uniforms that they are now producing at the school. We taught Sister Sabina and 24 others from all over East Timor over 2 weeks in Dili and we donated them new sewing machines and an overlockers , and so  it is always  very pleasing to see such good result.  This sort of feed back  also encourages us to make a return visit to teach them more and update their equipment etc.

 

Team:   Glenda Bones , Vera Liondas, Sheila McDowall , Gay Grillmeier, Rhonda Whitton , Sandra and Tony Castley.

Students:  Twenty two ladies from these areas/ organisations:

Two from Soibada , nominated by Tamara Sloper-Harding;  four from Oecusse , nominated by Judith Charnaud; four from Dili , nominated by Libby Bleakley; and  six from Viqueque and six from Lacluta, nominated Mira Fonseca.

Machines and Equipment:

We had shipped up previously 8 x Singer 4411 Heaver Duty automatic sewing machines, 5 x Triumph Overlockers, and four good reconditioned second hand machines – two Berninas, one Brother and one Janome. A huge pallet of fabric, sewing accessories and haberdashery was also sent.

Brief Report:

After many months of preparation, we flew into Timor Leste on Sunday 17^th and settled into the Timor Lodge near the airport. We had hired a function room at ALFela ( a  women’s crisis NGO ) and  Monday morning all our sewing machines, fabrics etc. were delivered there at 8.30am and we arrived soon after in our little hired Microlet.  We took the whole morning to set up and then all our students arrived at 1pm for a briefing- which concluded at 3pm.

Tuesday morning 9am the teaching program began, and when it became clear that only one of the 22 students spoke English, we could see we were in for some challenges. We had arranged for a young man (Amin ) to help us as an interpreter, but we quickly realised we needed more and later Mira and  her daughter Elda helped out.

The students were divided into 4 classes ( 2 x 6 and 2 x 5 ) with one teacher for each class, with Gay looking after the overlocking. There were seven students who had some sewing experience so Rhonda took six of these and other three classes were all beginners, except one person.

When we say beginners, we quickly learned that these ladies had never seen a sewing machine, let alone ever used one. So it was a couple of trying days, teaching these ladies to use the sewing machines and the overlockers. Ironing wasn’t much different, as early on the iron was left upside down, and another time melted the plastic frame of the ironing board etc. So we asked, thru the interpreter, who had ever ironed before –  only  4 or 5 out of the 22 had ever used an iron.

However, our wonderful teachers dug in, and it was quite remarkable the attractive bags that were already made by the end of day two.

Every day we arrived at the room at 8.45 for a 9am start and as usual it was hard to get the ladies to break for morning tea or lunch- they were so keen to learn and get on with it. We had paid an organisation $1,500 to supply morning teas and lunch and certainly our teachers were ready for a break!

The teaching continued to Friday of the first week and then Monday to Thursday the second week.

The last Friday morning we packed up all the machines and equipment ready to distribute to the students. And we set up the room for the presentation in the afternoon.  Altogether some 150 or more articles were sewn by the students and these we displayed on four tables.

At 1 pm the ladies arrived and we started the presentations of certificates and equipment. Also some of the students gave testimonials ( in Tetum ) translated for us by Mira. We had several important visitors including David Boyce from Rotary, Judite and Mario from RAT ( Rotarians Assisting Timorese) and we were pleased to have Peter Roberts the Australian Ambassador.

After the presentations we had a party and everyone relaxed and had a good time. Then it was time to say goodbye to all these people we had come to know and love. They packed up all their garments they had made, and along with sewing machines, overlockers, large cutting mats and several bags of haberdashery and accessories, they climbed onto the back of tiny utilities and such like. Some were going home on the bus that same evening- a bus trip that would take 8 hours or more.

So as before, we believe the program was a huge success; certainly, the students thought so. The challenge is always whether they can repeat what they learned when they get home. This time we really emphasised the threading and servicing of the sewing machines and overlockers, and I believe we sent them home more skilled in this area than we have previously.  But as before we will monitor how they go, and we will continue to assist them.

Thank you

I would like to say a special thank you to our teachers who worked tirelessly throughout the two week program and as usual did a fabulous job. Thank you ladies. Also, thanks to Sandra who helped me with much of the managements and acted as treasurer. Thanks to David Boyce of Dili Rotary, and to Amin and Elda our interpreters, and in particular many thanks to Mira Fonseca, who organised most of the pre-trip arrangements for us.

Tony Castley 2/12/2019

Click on any photo and it will enlarge to full screen

 Sewaid Team opportunities  East Timor and Kiribati

Dear Ladies,

We have a few vacant positions for our upcoming teams to East Timor and Kiribati. If you have any interest to join one of these teams, please give me a call or reply via email.

Also if you no longer want to be on our data base, please advise.

East Timor,  November 17th-30th, 2019

We are planning a sewing training program in Dili, the capital of East Timor in late November.

We will be teaching ladies selected from these areas and NGO leaders:

Oecusse : organised by Judy Charnaud -Rotary E-Club of Greater Sydney )

Soibada  : organised by Tamara Sloper-Harding -Rotary Club of Northern Beaches ,Sydney

Dili: organised by Libby Bleakley – Rotary Club of BlackHeath, NSW

Vinqueque: organised by Mira Fonseca of Dili.

Hera : organised by Mira Fonseca of Dili

The project will also by in conjunction with the Rotary club of Dili

The students will be taught in  5 different classes , Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Craft. For a better understanding of our program, please check our website  for the photos and report from our most recent program on Solomon Islands

The cost will be capped at $2,500.  Airfares and accommodation are expensive for East Timor and Sewaid with cover all cost exceeding $2,500 per teacher. All the sewing machines, fabrics and accessories will be shipped to East Timor by Sewaid to arrive there in October.

This program will not only be of great benefit to the students ( who will all come form very poor arears) but as always I am sure it will be very satisfying, lots of fun and an experience of a lifetime.

Kiribati  March 2020

Following a survey visit I made in April to Kirabati , we have promised to run a Sewaid training course in or around March next year. The exact dates are not set as yet, but should be confirmed shortly.

Kiribati is a small set of islands 3 hours by plane from Fiji. It is a very poor nation of 110,000 people, but they are also some of the most friendly and delightful people to work with.

The program will be supervised by the South Tarawa Rotary Corps , in conjunction with several other church and government groups. It will be over 2 weeks with the middle Saturday and Sunday spent a resort. Unfortunately airfares to Kirabati are very expensive, and so the cost is capped at $2,500 and Sewaid will pay everything exceeding that cost.

Our teaching program will again be much the same as Solomon Islands and our other recent programs. Sewaid will ship all the machines, fabrics and accessories over to Kirabati beforehand.

And again,  this  program will not only be of great benefit to the students ( who will all come from very poor homes) but as always I am sure it will be very satisfying, lots of fun and an experience of a lifetime.

Regards

Tony Castley

Sewaid.

0414801888

tonyc@sewgroup.com

www.sewaid.com

photo: Sewaid Team to Solomon Islands February 2019 

East Timor: We shipped to Mrs Mira Fonseca one of the people we are working with there, a large amount of fabric and supplies through Donations in Kind (DIK) in Melbourne. We thanks DIK Laurie Fisher for his kind assistance with this.

Some of the fabric shipped will be used to make shopping bags for Rotary clubs and in this regards we also shipped and donated a screen printing outfit. We will be very interested to see how this progresses.

Cambodia: We have for sometime been looking for someone to carry a machine and parts to Sustainable Cambodia (SC), and we were pleased to hear from Zac Jefferies of  Bayview college in Victoria that they are sending a team to SC in June and are happy  to carry this new Janome overlocker along with some parts and accessories that our sewing room at SC is in need of.

We send a very large shipment of fabric and accessories to SC last November thanks to the Jenny Knight and REECH. However some of the boxes of fabric and accessories went missing temporally, and so it was great news to hear this week that they had finally arrived in Pursat; and these following photos certainly show how pleased our sewers at SC were to receive them.

Click on these photo for full screen size 

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

Other new projects we are investigating.
East Timor:
Judith Charnaud who is a member of my Rotary club, has lived in East Timor for the past 14 years, in a very remote area called Oecusse . This is a small part of East Timor which is not actually attached to East Timor but rather it is situated in Indonesian West Timor ! . It is an very poor area, but also a very pretty area in parts. For some time now we have been talking to Judy and John Corney from the Epping Rotary Club, about a SewAID project in Oecusse, and planning is progressing for this to be in April/May 2019. This project will be teaching a variety of sewing skills, including school uniforms, dressmaking, school curriculums, and perhaps some Days for Girls. Suitable basic accommodation and working rooms are available and everything will be arranged for this project. This will be a very interesting trip, and I have great memories of our visit there a few years ago. We will need 4 to 6 volunteer teachers , and so we invite volunteers from our data base to register their interest now.

Solomons
The small group of women that we taught in March are very anxious for us to go back with a larger team of teachers in March next year. This trip is to be at the time of the International Women’s Day as they are planning to have a big celebration there at that time. Vera taught Days for Girls sewing last time, but this time they want to learn dressmaking and other items which they would like to sell. Similar to what we have taught in Cambodia. The project is on Noro , and there is good accommodation and support provided by Soltuna , the large tuna factory there, which is supporting our project. So again we are interested to hear from our volunteers who would like to go on this trip
Photo is from Vera’s classroom in Noro in March.

Other Countries
We have also been asked to teach in Kirabati and Tavalu , which are both small Pacific island countries. Tavalu is north of Fiji, and Kirabati is North from Vanuatu – and near to the Somomons.
We are just gathering details on these projects and more information will be available soon

Then we have also been invited to do teaching project in The Congo in Africa. This is a more challenging project due to the high costs of getting there. We are working with Lucy Hobgood-Brown who is also in my Rotary Club and Lucy has several active projects in the Congo which she visits every year; and for more details of Lucy’s projects please visit her website www.handupcongo.org

So lots of interesting projects in the melting pot. Do keep checking our website from time to time for updated information.
regards Tony
tonyc@sewgroup.com
Ph. 0414 801 888

This map shows where East Timor lies just Northwest of Australia and the insert shows East Timor in purple and you can see the little enclave of Oecusse situated in what is Indonesian West Timor and separated from the main East Timor.