Fashion For Social Change

Fashion is mostly attributed with luxurious labels, glamorous models and high-end designs. An organization called Supporting and Empowering Women (SEW) is making an impact on local Tanzanian women. 

How do you make an impact on local African women and their lives besides volunteering? This is the question 26 year old Jessie Smith criminal lawyer and social entrepreneur asked herself when she volunteered in a refugee camp in Africa and saw firsthand the plight of women living with HIV/AIDS. She now runs a non-profit organization that employs HIV+ women in Tanzania to sew handbags and clothes from recycled materials. 

SEW began designing eco- friendly bags in order to give these women meaningful employment and self-sustainment. They are famously dubbed ‘Sewing Mamas’ and SEW was able to hire ten of them, but lost a member of their team last year to HIV/AIDS.

What makes SEW so different is the use of local gunias or grain sacks that are mostly used to carry garbage or line local kiosks and shade Mama Mboga from the heat of the sun.  The organization relies on raw materials that are completely recycled, they use leftover fabric from local tailors and the sack bags. 

The Sewing Mamas are taught how to sew the bags and other items from local and international designers who volunteer. The women are not hindered from the creative process and they design products like blankets.

“We are always open to new ideas; our doors are open to everyone.” project manager Jackie Kwamy asserts, because majority of their products were taught to the women through volunteers. Trying to find local customers and targeting local tourists is a challenge because the bags are popular with international tourists and expatriates. “We want to include more locals in this process, so that they can be aware of the products and buy them also.’’ Jackie says.

Hiring women who are HIV positive sounds good on paper: giving them a chance to work, instilling confidence and providing healthcare.  However fighting stigma and ignorance is something SEW had to deal with. Working with a similar organization SIDAI Designs which employs Maasai women to make customized jewelry from beads, “The women wanted to separate themselves; they didn’t want to share cups or spoons with the Sewing Mamas because they attributed HIV transmission with sharing and interacting with them.”

Tackling social norms and practices wasn’t easy either, some women have to work from home in order to cater to their numerous responsibilities: looking after their children, the cattle, their homes and their husbands. This requires them to bring their work on a certain day of the week. The other women are single mothers with children who have no husbands to lean on.

SEW is an excellent illustration of how an organization can tackle challenges the 21^st century: HIV/AIDS, environmental awareness, female empowerment and creation of employment. They have brought sustainable change and meaningful employment within the context of complex relationships locally and culturally and have a clear understanding of what limitations the women face and how teaching sewing and designing skills can lead to female empowerment.

Q&A Interview with Jacky Kwamy SEW project manager

 

Jacky Kwamy , SEW project manager

     1. How did you come up with the idea of using recycled materials to make these unique products?

We are self-funding, everything we use is recycled. We don’t have a lot of capital to buy all the raw materials. The pieces of khanga are free; we get them from local tailors. We buy the sack grains for 100 tshs *approx 5kshs. The aim was to get raw materials that are really cheap and not worry about the capital used to buy raw materials.

2.      What impact do you think SEW has had on local women apart from the Sewing Mamas?

They learn that women can do something even without proper training. The women we get don’t have any prior training on sewing or designing; so they learn from scratch. They have learnt that they don’t have to have a certain education to be able to do something; you just have to be willing to learn and be taught. This way they can learn the skills and start their own business.

3.      Do you ever use the Internet for inspiration?

No. Not really.

What we do is get interns and designers who come and teach about designing. All the products we have were items that were taught to the Mamas. We are working on getting interns who can come in with new designs to teach the women how to do it.

4.      What makes SEW different from other non-profit organizations in Tanzania or Africa?

We work with women who are HIV positive and make sure that everything they make goes back to them. We care more about the Sewing Mamas than profit –making. We employ women full-time and pay them double the minimum wage and provide health care for them. They are allowed sick days depending on their condition.

5.      What challenges do you face on a daily basis and how do you respond to them?

Stigmatization is a big challenge and people’s perception on HIV/AIDS. People from their local community separate themselves from the women and don’t look at them as normal. They get very little co-operation from people.

Selling the products locally is a challenge because they are made by people who are HIV positive. They don’t want to associate with them.

Withdrawing materials is also a challenge. The local tailors want payment for their leftover fabric because the women are being helped by the organization. When the Sewing Mamas go to the tailor on Wednesday, the tailors withdraw the quantities of fabric because they work in a NGO. There is a mentality that if you work with NGO you have money.

The level of knowledge, fighting ignorance and accepting the women for who they are is a challenge. If they use basic utensils like cups or spoons they assume that they will get the HIV virus.

6.      When you associate HIV transmission with the use of utensils i.e. using the same cups that illustrates that there is little knowledge in HIV transmission. Are you working on teaching tolerance?

As SEW we don’t, but other organizations like the Peace Corps, Imara Ministry, churches and local communities are working on it.

7.      Stigmatization is still a challenge; can you say that it has improved over the years?

It has improved a lot, compared to 10 years ago.  We also faced this issue with the Sidai Mamas, because they didn’t want to share plates, cups or spoons with the Sewing Mamas. But they now understand how HIV is transmitted.

The problem is that the organizations dedicated to educating the people about HIV/AIDS work with other large organizations they don’t go to schools, villages or churches. Some pastors don’t feel comfortable to preach about this issue.

They rarely go to Masai communities or villages sitting there and talking to them about this issue.

8.       Some communities are quite patriarchal; do you think social norms and culture hinder women, such as their husbands hindering them from working?

Most of the women are single mothers and their husbands are not involved with them. Some Maasai women work from home due to their numerous responsibilities they have like looking after their children, the cattle, home and husbands and also their husbands prefer it that way.

The ones working here live in town and their husbands understand. We have tried to pull them in to see what they do, so they see the value and agree to it.

One thing we are doing now is having a workshop once a week hosted by Inherit your Rights, where we learn about their rights, their roles and place in their communities. of women They use radio shows in Maasai to educate them because when you speak Kiswahili to them they feel like you are intruding on their culture. 

9.      There’s a lot of international support for SEW, do you experience the same support here locally?

We are trying to have more local customers and target local tourists. The government is also pleased with what we are doing and has given us tax free registry.

10.  Are the Sewing Mamas involved in the creative process?

Yes. We give them the platform to incorporate their own ideas. One of the things they have done independently is making blankets and pillows. We also get local customers suggesting that we make something as per their specifications and we do it. We don’t limit ourselves to the products we already have. The new folders we have, was an idea from a customer who came up with the design. We took it and we used it, we did them for a UN conference.

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