Bairo Pite Clinic and Rotary Dili - a great mix

We have been excited that Rotary Dili was inspired to purchase 100 MHM packs to pass on to Dr Dans clinic at Bairo Pite.
This week Fi, from the clinic arranged for Belekria to visit and run a small training class with some midwives, nurses and cleaners.  They will be distributing them to women when they are discharged and returning to the districts.

Emmy led the Discussion and was quite adept at explaining the benefits and use of all the packs items.

 The women were really interested, occasionally shy and giggly, especially when the underpants were pulled out :)

After Emmy had finished, 3 of them had a go at explaining what they had learned. They did really well.  Then at the end, time was given for any questions.
First Question:
"Can we buy these at the kiosk?"
Second Question:
"How much are they?"
Third Question:
"Where is your business/shop?"

The implication is that most of them want to be using them themselves.  Pretty encouraging feedback.

Rotary informed of the MHM issues in Timor Leste

Yes its been months since i posted last!  Ill be catching up over the next week or two.

A couple of months ago I received a phone call from Geraldine, recent Director of CARE here in Timor.  She has had a real passion to assist Belekria's vision, and has been trying to advocate for women.  She let me know that she was going to be speaking at the Dili Rotary club meeting about the topic of women's sanitation, and she was going to recommend they purchase some pads to donate to Bairo Pite Clinic (Dr Dans Clinic)..

I was so excited by this possibility as for a number of years this clinic has expressed an interest in receiving the pads to distribute, but we had not been able to find a suitable way, so perhaps Rotary will be able and willing to fill that need.
 

Dr Dans, Bairo Pite Clinic

Time Management

While these massive order of pads has been quite an intense focus for Belekria, it hasn’t really stopped them from completing other smaller jobs.  The women have been good at delegating roles, so one of them is responsible for mending jobs that come in.  She will serve the customer and do the mending then get back into the pad factory line.

Another woman is in charge of keeping up with the lumber rolls.  I'm not actually sure if I’ve mentioned these before, but a lovely lady from NZ has a physiotherapy practice here in Dili and she sells lumber rolls.  She has been getting Belekria to sew them since Jan and tends to buy 5-10 a month.  They have even been taking extra work home with them in order to stay on top of things, so I have been impressed by their dedication.

They are always making school uniform sales and adjustments, as well as whipping up a few extra items to try and sell at markets.

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

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.

A New Library In Timor

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a friend of a friend, who was helping prepare for the official reopening of the Xanana’s reading room (Now Xanana's cultural centre and library)

At our first meeting Belekria was asked to sew some cushions for the children's area in the library.  They asked for a total of 24 cushions including 10 huge cushions at 1mx1m.  All with an applique animal on the top surface.  Most cushions produced here are single layer, but we sew/stuff a cushion and also sew a removable cushion cover to match.

Their second request was for me to organise a floor covering of some sort, which we decided would be better if was woven matting rather than a cloth/sewn rug.  We discussed some decorative options and have decided to use tais fabric to stitch an appliqued outline of East Timor across 3 large woven mats.

The third request was for a large crocodile puppet along the lines of a Chinese dragon, which children could hold up and move around. 

The fourth and final request was for me to re-stretch 2 small paintings which Xanana painted while he was in Prison.

WOW!

As you can imagine I’ve been quite busy myself as well as the sewing room being flat out stitching and stuffing cushions. J

The official opening was this past Sunday, and the cushions and crocodile were well loved. 

Unfortunately the woven mats were unable to be prepared in time, partly due to the impracticality of collecting and drying the required palm leaves during a rainy time, and partly as they are so huge themselves – 3 mats each 2.5 x 5.6m!  Hopefully they will be ready for Mid January when regular activities will be arranged at the Cultural Centre.

Custom clothing – your wish is my command

 
None of the women have had much previous experience with sewing clothing.  Earlier this year they developed the school skirts and then the school shirts. And of course we had the cheif’s wedding dress.  And the batik smocked dresses. … And with the amazing influx of beautiful fabrics inspiration has been bursting out of the boxes! :)
We also had some visitors in September requesting custom clothing. So they have slowly been trying more and more styles. 
 
Israel was desperate to get his dream designer pants sewn up.  And he was very proud to wear them!

Sinta and Novi work together to produce some lovely garments.  They are always improving in their shaping/cutting and finishing, although i still have “Oh Dear'” moments. ;)
It has been very exciting watching their creativity flow, and seeing their skills develop.

The Chiefs wedding dress

       
A few weeks ago, we had an afternoon visit from the village Chief (Sheffie).  He explained that he was required to arrange and purchase a wedding dress for his god-daughter in the mountains.  We asked if he could bring her down for a measure up and to choose the fabric.  We also said we would give him a good deal.  
Anyway, a week later a small convey arrived – The Chief himself, an elderly woman and two younger women.  We trooped up to the sewing room in singe file, and set about establishing which of the young women was the lucky bride to be.   Funnily enough, she was absent!  But luckily, the chief had brought along his wife to measure up as she was roughly the same size.  As in, measure her, then make it “a bit” longer, cause the girl is taller, and she is “a bit” wider around the waist, and “a bit”smaller around the chest.  Hmmm so much for accurate fitting :)  We all had a giggle after they had left suggesting that if the dress didn't end up fitting the girl, maybe the older woman could wear it in her place!
Also, as the young bride to be wasn't around the other women chose the fabric for her.  Apparently the only request was that it was a pinky colour.  Can you imagine any woman in the western world leaving that wonderful choice to others? Anyway they were quite confident.  Earlier Sinta had helped me sort through our fabric stashes for all the pinky satin finish fabrics.  She had held up a very bright apricot fabric and said this is what they will choose.  I had repressed my revulsion and suggested putting the other options out just in case.  Of course she was right.  Its all relative isn't it?
Thankfully the design they wanted was very simple – no sleeves, simple gathered skirt with a fitted bodice.  Sinta kindly brought in her own wedding dress to use as a guide.  A lovely frothy green and yellow extravagance ;)
Sinta was the seamstress for this project – Our first wedding dress.
Here she is pinning and planning…

Of course she was the closest in size so she got to model it as it developed.

And here is the almost finished frock.  Seeing as the young bride to be still hasn't shown her face (or her body which is actually more important), we haven't stitched on the straps at the back to allow for at least a pretense of fitting.