An exciting opportunity

 

Wow! Dont you just love an unexpected phone call with good news?

I was contacted by Deb, from ETWA, who has been working in Los Palos for 2 years, supporting a large weaving group.   They have a new range of products to produce using their hand-woven fabric and are looking for a sewing room that can provide a high and constant standard of quality. 

She arranged to visit belekria yesterday, and she left 5 samples/ patterns for us to have a go.  Its a bit of a dream for us.  We LOVE the hand-woven “tais” fabric that women produce here in Timor, but right from the start we were reluctant to make products with it as we didn't want to compete with some of the other great NGOS such as Alola and ETWA.  

But this opportunity would mean we get to work with the tais fabric, and produce beautiful items in partnership with one of these NGO’s.  A perfect mix!

Deb has 2 questions for us…. will the quality be good enough and consistant?  And will our charges be affordable?

If successful, it will mean a relatively constant source of income for Belekria.

Lab Coats

An unusual request.   I must say that Bellekria has had a wide product base. 

Seeds of Life are creating an official soil testing laboratory.   We were asked if we thought we could whip up a handful of lab coats.   Of course we always say “sure we can”.  Never turn down work hey?

Thankfully, a lovely teacher at the international school offered us a small lab coat to copy.  When it arrived it turned out to be a “pretty” version perhaps from a dept store perfumery or a salon.   So it had a nice satin lining and darts to flatter the figure.   Seeds of Life decided they didn't need those details, so we bought some thick cotton drill and prepared to cut.   Sinta was sure they had recently received some white drill in the shipment from Australia, so she hunted through all the piles, and, she actually found a bonus.   In the pile of Cotton Drill, was 3/4 of a lab coat pr-cut!  ????? What on earth??

Yes, someone had donated a lab coat, cut out ready to copy.  Isn't God’s hand almost visible sometimes?  Sinta and the others voiced their amazement in Gods provision.  So of course this find made the task so much easier and less scary.   

We had to make them “4 small for Timorese size bodies, and 2 larger for foreigners”.   Not the best measurements to use, but I think they guestimated pretty well! :)