Sewing instructor, Antoinette Ferreira, together with Humansdorp-based, non-profit organisation, Sakhe Family Care, will be hosting a 10-week sewing course for women in the area from May 4, to help them acquire skills to establish their own businesses.
Ferreira, who is a trained home economist, specialises in garment production and instruction and has received training in image planning, through the Fashion Academy of Los Angeles. She was recently contacted by Thanduxolo Buka, the founder of Sakhe Family Care, to work out a proposal for a sewing course for the community.
Since its establishment seven years ago, the NPO has dealt with various community initiatives such as psychosocial support, alleviating poverty, and job creation.
Considering that Ferreira already had a great amount of experience as a sewing instructor and a desire to uplift women by teaching them, she was keen on getting involved in the initiative.
Ferreira, who has been providing private sewing lessons from her home in Jeffreys Bay for many years, said her classes focused on teaching people a skill that could help them in the future.
She said the 10-week sewing course would therefore serve as a vehicle for those enrolled to learn and master project-specific skills while, hopefully, also developing their basic life skills.
“The big goal is to develop positive personal assets needed to live successfully in a diverse and changing world,” said Ferreira.
To develop these positive personal assets, Ferreira ensured that all her classes were kept to small groups.
“My biggest passion is to help women of all ages to make the most of themselves. I have therefore been using training as the method to build into women’s lives over many years,” said Ferreira.
She said the sewing course was designed for first time sewers or people who knew very little about sewing.
Ferreira further said during the course, each person would be guided through the various steps to understand and execute the basic skills of sewing items by hand and machine.
She said the goal was also to help women sell what they had made, so some basic business skills would also be developed.
“My desire is that more people will develop their creative abilities and make a living by using their abilities,” said Ferreira.
Registration for the course cost R100 per person while the rest of the course would be subsidised.
Ferreira said they were hopeful that women who could not afford regular sewing classes would be able to join the course.
She further said the public was welcome to donate material scraps or sponsor one of the participants by paying for their registration fee.
The 10-week sewing course will start on May 4, and will take place at the Department of Social Development in Humansdorp.
Buka said the initiative was funded by the National Development Agency and the Solidarity Fund, to empower women with skills which will enable them to be independent.
“Both sponsors are supporting this initiative as a strategy to flatten the curve of this shadow pandemic in our communities,” said Buka.
“We therefore hope that local businesses and other funding trusts will support this initiative as we only have a limited amount of funding to accommodate a certain number of women who need this skill. I believe that together we can achieve more.”
For more information contact Antoinette Ferreira on 078 516 7737 or Thanduxolo Buka on 042 295 2495.
