CARE order confirmed

This is old news now!  Apparently i didnt actually post this earlier.....
 CARE has since picked up their order and we have been able to maintain one of the three women as an extra part time staff member since then.

We have received a few visits by CARE staff over the past few weeks, and they have officially ordered 500 pads *YAY* 

 This confirmed us keeping the extra 3 women working for a second month.  

CARE also have provided a lot of encouragement and support to the Belekria staff, and have given a few good suggestions.

One of which is to try and inform the Ministry of Health about the issue of MHM (Menstrual Hygiene Management)  and what Belekria is doing.  So Emmy has made a number of visits to the Ministry of Health and has been receiving good feedback and last week she was asked to write a letter to someone important within the Dept.  She tried to deliver it twice today but the important person was out both times, so she will try again tomorrow.

A second good prompt from CARE was that Belekria needs a bank account.    We had been making feeble attempts to get that sorted but when we realised that both these large orders will want an account to pay into, we found some extra motivation.

I'm not sure what its like to open a business bank account tin Oz, but here the list of documents was pretty long – 9 I think. Thankfully most of them we had already form the registration process.  But one more was needed.  So far this has meant 3 trips to various Gov. locations, hopefully now it won’t be long before we have a bank account.  CARE has since become a little worried that the account won’t be open before the end of the month, so as a precaution they have asked Emmy to write a letter to request payment as a personal check, so this will be a good backup.  CARE need to pay us before the end of June, so the women have been working hard on completing their order quickly.

When the women started cutting out the bulk pads PUL, we found them a few times starting from one side of the fabric straight, but by mid way across the tessellations were not joining up.  First I just tried to cut out 3 extra single templates so they could set out a few at a time, but this still did not seem to be adequate.  So my thinking cap went on, and I decided to cut a large template which could reach across the folded PUL.  Many hours of careful cutting later I had produced a foldable template, that seems to be effective.

The Independence Remembrance 5 day market

The Dept of Tourism had been letting Belekria know that a market was being planned for the annual Independance day celebration.  They had assured Belekria they had a place reserved and would be notified later about when it would start etc.

Sooo one fine morning a couple of days after the public holiday, Belekria received another ph. call to say that it was starting that day!  Oops better get organised then hey?

Unfortunately it just happened to be when Samuel was away for a few days, and me being too scared to drive in the big city of Dili, poor Emmy and Nona were pretty embarrassed by their market stall on a small plastic coffee table…. So much for “PRESENTATION!”

I finally asked John from MAF if he could take our dining table in his ute and drop it around for them, so that improved the appearance a bit.   I was tryng not to be involved but was glad to visit them on the last day, and buy a few local products (as well as a cute black bunny for Israel).

Sadly the market wasn’t well advertised (actually not sure if was advertised at all) so even though Emmy and Nona turned up each day around 9am and stayed till after 10pm they came out of the 5 day market with a total of $53 income and $32 spent in transport etc. hmmmm.  Oh well, you win some you lose some.

Products for the International Craft Fair

Pam left me with some great ideas for new products.   Most of them designed to have embroidery.  So after she left I trialled the women who had attended her lessons and gave them some more lessons and assistance.  I then started to pay them per piece.  I drew the embroidery designs on the fabric and provided all the threads and needles.

I was really impressed with Laura's work and she kept stitching away each day for me.

I then called upon Sinta (the previous head sewer of Belekria who had to withdraw due to ill health and family issues) and she stitched the samples up very neatly, to produce these lovely bags.

 A simple shoulder bag with embroidered details.

A travel shoe bag, with appliqued/embroidered shoe designs.

Some travel tags. The other side has an acrylic window with a card for address details.

Revisiting Xanana's Cultural Centre

 After many months of waiting, partly due to the wet season impacting on the harvesting of the palm leaf,  women at Atekru, on the island of Atauro finally finished the huge Bite mat ordered by the Xanana's Cultural Centre.   As the women at Belekria were quite busy, I took on the task of applying a Timorese handwoven tais.  The process of creating a wide bias binding was quite tediuos  and led to a few iron burnt fingertips, however the finished product looked great!
The mat is approx 6mx3m.
Samuel thought it would be nice to have Emmy representing her family/friends form Atekru who wove the mats.

And Israel and Xakira explored the children's section of the library, enjoying the huge pile of cushions, most of them sewn by Belekria

Pam instigates some embroidery...

Thanks Pam!

 While Pam was here we took the opportunity to run a few embroidery classes with a small group of neighbours.  They loved it and tried really hard.

Rosaria (13)

Laura (~19) and 8 months pregnant, proved to be the most dedicated.

Her mother, Martha had some prior experience and tended to want to do it her way instead of trying something new :)  But I think she didnt want to be outdone by her daughter so she kept trying.

 Amira was really excited to learn how to sew, and she was very neat and had a lovely eye for colour.

After Pam returned to Australia I have been giving some embroidery work to 3 of the women, and will show some examples of the finished product in a later post...

Fabric Friends...

Due to the size of the recent Red Cross order, we have had to arrange the purchase of more than 60 meters of PUL fabric (from Green Beans Australia).
I asked around friends  to see if we could find some friendly fabric carriers!
Thankfully, I have been able to send parcels to 4 different travellers, who will all carry it here over the next 3-4 weeks.
One of these travelers is Pam who will be coming to stay with us next Friday.  She is bringing some sample items and some supplies to teach the women at Belekria some new sewing techniques.  This will be very exciting for the women, and as we have started 3 new women we will be able to share the training with all of them.

I have also experimented with a small order to be posted directly to Timor...so we shall wait and see if that option is working.

When I had printed out the 4 separate orders, I added up the meterage and realised I over ordered a little - maybe 10-15m more than i needed.  However i quickly reassured myself that we would use it up sometime....
Well an hour ago (about an hour after i had placed the last 2 orders and noticed the extra meterage) I received a phone call from a lady working at CARE.  She wants to visit Belekria tomorrow morning to discuss pads!  YAY a second NGO prepared to distribute modern cloth pads.

Im wondering if the extra sewers may be working for more than the planned 1 month :)

Yahoo!!

BREAKING NEWS!
Belekria has been asked to produce 1800 pads for the red cross to distribute.

""""HA--LLE--LU--JAH!!"""  Can you hear the bells ringing?

Not only will Belekria get a decent income for a month or 2, but we will also be doubling the staff for a month (spread the love around), AND, most importantly hundreds and hundreds of women will recieve a cloth pad that will save them money and shame for up to 5 years!

It just makes me want to sing......................
""""HA--LLE--LU--JAH!!""" ""HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, HA=--LLE-------LU------JAH!!"

This is why I started Belekria.