Presenting the Nepal Fashion Academy!

 It all started with one sewing machine. After visiting Nepal several times, and seeing how few job opportunities there were for under-educated women,  an idea formed. I have to come clean that this was not an original idea. I had first heard of buying sewing machines to help poor and marginalized women while reading a book by husband and wife team Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof called “Half the Sky.” The subtitle was  “turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide.” OK, that was right up our alley at Hands in Nepal. One solution the authors found that was effective was buying sewing machines for women who had no job skills. Sewing was a vocation, something you could do without academic education, although some sewing knowledge would be necessary, but could easily be taught. I tried the idea out with a woman my friend Durga introduced me to. Like many woman here who marry at an early age, and then lose their husbands for one reason or another, they have little education to fall back on. Providing for themselves and often children becomes “hand to mouth”, hard labor or begging. A sewing machine bought for $150 usd can provide lots of income-potential uses for such women. 

Word spread. Soon, we were buying sewing machines as well as books and taking both up to remote villages. The machines proved to be very useful. Women could share a sewing machine and repair clothes. They could tailor. They could sew sanitary pads. I would visit villages where we had donated machines and be presented with sun bonnets, pantaloons for babies,  one woman tried to make me a dress in appreciation ( it was impossible to fit over my broad shoulders and turned into a riotous round of laughing and teasing.)  We were asked to provide sewing instruction that went beyond simple “how to operate your machine”. It made sense that more training would allow women to do interlock, embroidery and more ‘industrial” strength stitches. Pillows, bed covers, costumes for cultural celebrations could be ordered and made. One woman was able to open her own dress shop and another expanded her small business into pillow covers and sewing the typical dress of tunic and under leggings common in Nepal. 

We unofficially tagged the name “One Stitch At A Time” considering each woman in the program starts her sewing journey with one stitch and then another.

The success of the Hands in Nepal’s sewing program spread everywhere. Now when I gave talks to American women, I’d get so much support that people would specifically write checks to purchase the machines. 

People who sewed understood how many ways sewing can help. An art form as old as the hills, known around the world in many cultures as a basic skill set, it could open bridges to those eager to support themselves and their families.

Presenting the Nepal Fashion Academy!

Last year our project manager Kavita Adhikari, told us about a school that teaches certified sewing courses. A 6 month course would qualify a woman to do all types of sewing. A full year would give that woman certification to teach sewing. With the certification, she would not only be able to do a high level of sewing projects but teach others. Bishol Gurung overseas the Nepal Fashion Academy where instructors teach a variety of classes and spent time outlining how the programs works when we visited him. 

Below:

Women sported by Hands in Nepal in the six month program, receiving news from Jan Sprague that they will be given scholarships from Hands in Nepal to complete the one year training

Last year’s graduate of the one year program, Anita, greeted us the day I was in Pokhara for a visit and to see the sewing program in action. The women were huddled around Anita when we walked in, learning advanced embroidery stitches. 

I was so

impressed with the beautiful stitching each was doing on a burlap bag for practice. Even more joyful when I found out they were presenting me with 3 of the finished practice bags. They will be going on our next auction table and hopefully adding to the sewing program funds!

The women were so grateful to Hands in Nepal for their sewing classes that they presented Hands a “token of love, “ a carved wooden symbol of peace. We then shared cake by feeding it to each other with our hands. It’s a cultural thing in Nepal to show respect by hand-feeding someone at special occasions. It seemed a fitting gesture since we were also celebrating Hands in Nepal helping them help themselves. After all the celebrations of the sewing successes, Kavita and I went to see Anita's new shop. When I first met her she had taken on the tiny shop her husband pretty much ran into the ground before deserting her and their two small children, leaving a mountain of debt.  Through our sewing program, she managed to sew her way to the top, and proudly showed me her slightly larger shop which now had two sewing machines. She has been hired to sew cultural costumes for a fashion show that the sewing school puts on annually, and was sewing school uniforms for a school district. She had requested a third sewing machine so she could hire even more help with sewing jobs, so a number of us donated funds privately so she could expand yet again!

Below: Bishol Gurung second from right, Jan, Kavita, Anita and sewing students 

We are so proud of all 

 the women who have turned their lives around, “one stitch at a time”.

And grateful to the Nepal Fashion Academy for their role in making this happen. 

There are more women waiting to join the Fashion Academy and start sewing, however we’ve reached our limit for this year’s budget in sewing scholarships. If you’d like to help send a deserving woman to sewing school, contact me at:

Jansprague2@gmail.com 

Namaste!