We have heard back from the Rotary Club of Turramurra, that the sewing program at their Banda Aceh "Gampon Anak" (orphanage /community centre) is going extremely well. The ladies have secured a contract to make school uniforms and so productivity is at a high. All reports are that the machines are running well.
Banda Aceh is the area worst hit by the tsunami, and the Rotary Club of Turramurra (along with other Rotary groups and supporters), have just completed building a community village called a "Gampong Anak" . This complex on the outskirts of the city of Banda Aceh consists of new accommodation for orphans, and facilities for the local community to use. They intend to set up a small sewing school and they request that Sewaid supply some machines and also some teachers - to teach the teachers. The sewing school will be run by the Gampong Anak Rotary committee and staff, and selected women from the nearby village will be invited to come to learn sewing at the Gampong Anak complex. (Much like our Community Colleges.)
With regard to danger, the Australian Govt has had a warning on Indonesian travel for more than a year now. It was especially in force last November, and yet in Banda Aceh everyone was relaxed and friendly with not the slightest sign of any problems. However since that time, the GAM (the rebel's name) have won the State election by a landslide and now the GAM leader is the Governor of the State of Banda Aceh and working with the central government. Rotary is very highly recognised in this area and very well respected. The Banda Aceh area is actually one of the richest States in Indonesia (as it has the oil) and although it was so badly affected by the tsunami, a good deal of prosperity is evident and the recovery and rebuilding is quite amazing. However, as usual very large numbers of ordinary families really need help.
Banda Aceh is the area worst hit by the tsunami, however the city, business and government etc have recovered remarkably well as it is a
fairly rich area of Indonesia, but as usual a lot of ordinary people are still suffering.
Teaching volunteers have now departed for Banda Aceh (Sumatra Indonesia). The trip has been organised by Julie White and Julie Palmer of Turramurra Rotary Club here in Sydney. Turramurra Rotary has done a lot of aid work in Banda Aceh since the Tsuanmi and several members have travelled to this area many times and they know it very well. They have built a large modern complex for orphans and it is intended to use one of the service rooms as a sewing room where a small team of women can make articles to sell.
This project is also supported by a local Rotary Club in Banda Aceh, and in Banda Aceh the main organiser is an enthusiastic young lady called
Dedek who speaks quite good English. Additionally, Lynn Osborne, an ESL teacher will be travelling with the team and Lynn speaks some
Indonesian. Another international organisation called SOS is also involved with the management of the Rotary complex. The accommodation for
the teachers will be at the SOS building, a short bus trip away. The accommodation and living conditions will be superior to most of our
previous Island experiences.
The trip will be a very interesting cultural experience.
Before they left, the teaching team all got together in Sydney and they were pleased to take receipt of a brand new Husqvarna overlocker to take with them. This overlocker was very kindly donated by Husqvarna Viking and we are sure that with such a high quality machine the new students cannot fail to be successful. Our many thanks go to Husqvarna Viking for this most generous gift.
From left: Lyn Osman (ESL teacher), Sylvia Gillard, Tony Castley, Julie Palmer, Patty Klaassen, with Julie White sitting on the Husky overlocker.
With the 905 model you can sew 2, 3 and 4-thread stitches and a built-in rolled edge. Finish and embellish any type of fabric quickly and easily. Overlock with no waves or puckers on knits and specialty fabrics. Easy threading and set up are featured and this model includes an instruction book and video to get you started.
We have already sent up 9 machines, fabric and sewing accessories, plus we will make a new overlocker available to take up with the teachers.
December 2nd to 6th, I traveled with 13 members of the Rotary Club of Turramurra to Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia.
The main purpose of the trip was to officially open the Rotary Youth Centre, a complex of 5 buildings under construction to form what they call a "Gampong Anuek" which means "Children's Village". The official opening of the first building (almost finished) was a grand affair, with Bill Boyd the Rotary International President flying in to officiate.
Ian Houden of Turramurra Rotary is the Manager of the Gampong Anuek project and Ian had asked to me investigate some sewing and craft projects that they have been involved with in Banda Aceh, and the following is a report on those projects.
Dedek, the local manager of the Rotary projects in Banda Aceh, took me to a small fabric weaving project. The elderly lady who owns it is quite famous in Indonesia for the fabrics which they weave here. The designs are all traditional designs dating back to her grandmother, and they are woven into the fabric with gold thread on very old looms. It takes 5 days to make one metre. There were about 20 looms at the place but only four working the Sunday we were there.
The finished cloth is primarily used for ceremonial dress. A 2.0 x 0.6 metre length sells for approximately R750,000 which is about A$100, which is a lot of money there. The weaving quality was quite good, the finishing of edges etc not so good.
This was a very successful home style business and as I said, very famous. However due to the GAM insurgency prior to the tsunami, the lady moved all her stock and cash over to her brother's house, and while her home was not in the tsunami affected area, all was lost at her brother's house.
I spoke to her son, who was interested to purchase a new semi-automatic loom from West Java for about A$1,250.000 and send some of the staff (perhaps his sister) down to West Java for training But now they have no money to do this. The new loom would make 2 metres in one day compared with 1 metre in 5 days! I asked if they have a sales market for the increased production and they thought they did - or they thought they could find an increased market. To date they usually just make to order and they usually have more orders than production fills. The finished fabric, as I said, is mainly used for ceremonial dress and I would think only suitable in Indonesia and nearby countries that dress up in this type of clothing.
Fabric weaving at Songet
Fabric weaving at Songet
This is a small room in a house with 4 old machines where they make rather remarkable embroidered articles, especially given the small room and the old machinery they have.
They have an old Janome domestic flat bed (20 years old, one of the first drop-in bobbin models) upon which they do a lot of the automatic pattern work. They have 2 industrial style overlockers, very old and in poor condition, and they have a Juki industrial machine, which is straight stitch and zig-zag, the width control being knee operated. They do the work on this machine in a hoop on fine polyester fabric, and use the variable width control and multi-coloured thread for all sorts of effects. They don't seem to use any embroidery backing material. They also have very bad light with no light on the Juki at all.
They make scarves mainly but also showed me a baby mattresses and hammock set which was quite nice. We all bought one of their white fine net scarves with shell edging done in a satin stitch and variegated thread, twice over on the Juki machine. The shell contour is formed manually and therefore there is a lot of time and skill to finish this edge. They then burn away the excess polyester netting from around the shell edge with a tiny soldering iron.
Sewing at Lanteneum
Sewing at Lanteneum
Sewing at Lanteneum
I was told this is a smaller version of Lamtemeun but I didn't go there.
We went to a small sorry little market shed where they were trying sell some hijabs (Islamic scarves). They had about 5 traditional white lace types for sale for R40,000 each. They said the sewing room that made them charged them R35,000 so they only made R5,000 (A$0.50) Does that sound right? I don't know where these were made or anything more about these. They were not made well, the seam and finishing was poor quality. The lace and fabric was OK.
Pusat Promosi Kera Jinan Aceh
Jl. Banda Aceh-Medan Km 8.5
Passar Lambarp Kec Ingin Jaya
Tel (0651) 70160 HP 0812 697 4949 Aceh Besar
This is nice shop full of hand bags of all sizes and shapes selling mainly to tourists. It is quite new so difficult to know how is it going. The bags are made at a factory quite some distance away I am told, and the quality was quite good with traditional designs. Hard to know if these products would sell in Australia as the designs are very Indonesian. However this shop was not part of the Rotary project, and I believe the purpose for going here was to see better made products and ideas that the smaller sewing shops above may be able to copy. However, these bags had obviously been made using heavy duty industrial sewing machines and so the small sewing business would need substantial new machinery to make this type of article. The investment would be too much I suspect. I bought a bag as a sample and also a prayer mat.
Handbag at Cut Nyak Dhen shop
Email d.haury@t-online.de
This German Rotarian has been a source of finance for projects in this area. Actually he claims "ownership" of the Songket, Lantemeun and Krueng Raya projects, having lent them money already. Dieter requested that he be kept informed on any ideas to further assist these projects. With regard to Songket he is very much against the idea of the new semi-automatic loom, saying that they would need to prove to him they have a larger market first.
Micro Loans for machines and small home sewing businesses. I briefly discussed my regular program with Dedek but we really didn't get around to considering if this was suitable. We will look into this further.
Perhaps something slightly different would be to set up a sewing class connected to the Gampong Aneuk when it is finished? We could see if we could get teachers to go up and get them started. Certainly finding machines for them would be no trouble but how to get them up there? I will continue to keep this option open to Dedek, Rama and Ian in future correspondence.
The best potential for assistance seemed to be Lantemeun, to assist them to find bigger premises, better equipment, and give them better direction on what to make that could be sold in Australia. They seemed to have potential in that they had creativity and energy. The whole original concept of making quilts for Marea Drayton to sell seems almost impossible at this stage. However I believe pet blankets, rugs and even a pet version of their baby hammock is more feasible. Marea could sell these to the Hillsong Church people I believe. But who would be the importer and take responsibility?
I will send this report to Ian Houden, Rama and Dedek and await their further direction.
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