Tailor empowerment
TEACHING SKILLS
TO BREAK THE
POVERTY CYCLE
Together with our partners, we have created a full 360° program, providing work opportunities, work-skill training, living support stipends, equipment loans and full social / life-skill support.
Our Mission
Tailor Empowerment’s mission is to bring participants into sustainable, meaningful income and help their families break the poverty cycle.
What makes TE such an impactful program:
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It is linked to an income generating opportunity with our partner The Tailor Network.
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Living stipends allow participants to focus on the program full-time, without worrying about making time for work.
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Affordable equipment is provided at depreciation value after the course.
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Cooperation with NGO partners ensures social support, while transitioning to a state of financial independence.
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Training includes also basic ‘work-life’ skills like budgeting, tax reporting, packaging and sending of finished products.
"Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity.
It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.”
- Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa
Program &
Participants
TAILORING EDUCATION PROGRAM
The purpose of the Tailor Empowerment (TE) program is to help lift families out of poverty by giving them skills that allow them to make meaningful income.
Most courses designed to help disadvantaged families provide education, but then don't provide the support needed for participants to make use of their new skills. Participants are often met with failure because they don't have access to the equipment required to use their new skills, or they don't have access to the work / clients / opportunities that bring in the income.
Tailor Empowerment is different in this regard, in that we want to ensure our participants are fully successful, with long term support that is sustaining.
COURSE 1 - SEWING FUNDAMENTALS
Curriculum:
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Sewing machine - usage, maintenance, troubleshooting
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Tailoring tools and their use (scissors, chalk, etc)
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Understanding a pattern and tech sheet
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Handling / cutting the fabric
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Sewing /construction of a garment
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Creation of different features (pockets for example)
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Preparing a garment for fitting
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Adjusting a garment to fitting feedback
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Packing and shipping of a garment
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Work flow efficiency
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Planning of workload / time management
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Budgeting income and tax payments
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Legal setup and tax reporting
Expected outcome
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Students will be able to produce at a professional level men's trousers to individual measurements based on provided patterns.
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Students will have transitioned into an existence as independent seamstresses, already earning first income from the production of customer trousers
the students
Tailor Empowerment works with socially disadvantaged people. The students in our first course will come from transition homes, where they are offered temporary housing and assistance while they often struggle to pull themselves out of their situation.
Most of the inhabitants of these transition homes do not posses marketable skills, so they are often exploited as temporary worker, and are unable to provide a stable environment for their families.
Since we see the Tailor Empowerment program as a program that allows students to help themselves, participants are chosen carefully. Not everyone will qualify for the training program. TE wants to make sure students have what it takes to be successful. Therefore participants must meet the following requirements:
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Wants to make a change in their life circumstances, and are willing to take action through dedicated work
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Addiction free (drugs, alcohol, meds, codependency)
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Has experience with 'longer' periods of continuous work
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Is showing proactive participation in other program offered by our NGO partners
Each participant will be screened to ensure they have a high chance of success. Each participant has to pass through a 3-step application process:
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He/she has to be recommended by a social worker from our NGO partner
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Motivational and background interview with TE's foundation Director
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Motivation and soft skill test with the course teacher
ongoing support
Even when students fulfill all the criteria listed afore, the transition from regular unemployment to a sustainable independence is very challenging.
To give the students the best chance at success, the program provides ongoing, full-time support from a dedicated social worker to support the students in their transition:
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Emotional support to deal with the anxiety of a demanding course load
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Learning support for those struggling to keep up
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Organisational support to handle new administrative challenges like packaging and shipping produced garments
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Emotional support to manage conflict and frustrations, preventing participants from easily giving up when faced with challenges
the teacher
For our Tailor Empowerment course we found not only a teacher with over a decade experience in professional tailoring as well as running her own sewing school. Maria also has experience in working with families from transition homes. She previously worked with a charity project in the Hungarian countryside.
This has given her the experience of having to overcome the initial resistance of participants from a socially disadvantaged background and leading that group to success. Having this experience is a very important factor in working with our students, as many of them are dealing with difficult life situations.