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.

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.

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...

Some more awareness of womens issues

I was very excited to be invited to attend a meeting at BESIK, where Jose and her colleagues were collating data they had collected in the Bobonaro District last week.  BESIK is looking at how to assist women in their sanitation needs.  Part of this includes a goal to increase the use of toilets, but also assessing what women's needs are in regards to sanitation.  It was fascinating discovering some of the beliefs surrounding menstruation, and both encouraging and informative for Belekria.
I was able to show a sample of our pads, and explain a few benefits.  They were quick to realise themselves that the pads would save money and create less rubbish.  One woman commented how soft the fabric was.
In preparation for the meeting I began to sketch out some notes, and the dot points I began with, grew into a decent report conveying my process and developments, challenges and hopes.
I will upload the report to the research page above.


Being a sewing room, I think its ok to say that im glad that "gender" has come into fashion. :)

On the same theme, Liz at CARE has also contacted me and I hope to be able to chat with her early next week.

To Do List:

• CARE
• World Vision
• PLAN
• ALOLA

End of year figures

I love using excel.  Just thought id share that with you.  It does explain why i have a very detailed file with lots of separate pages of numbers and figures for all sorts of things related to bellekria.  Of course there is a costing page, which works out how much each item costs, and what profit you get for the suggested retail price.  Then there are pages to do with employee details including loans management, pay packet tools and prices of all materials.  Just to name a few
Anyway, of course the most important excel file is the monthly profit and loss.  Sinta keeps a daily paper record of all sales, and at the end of the month passes them onto me along with any receipts and a chart detailing what days each employee worked.  I enter all this data, and add in any extras including their pay.  I have just been using the same file since i opened the sewing room, and it has always been in the red by a few hundred (ok, 9 hundreds to be more accurate).  Anyway I thought I would try the novel idea of working out the profit/loss just from this current year.  I wanted to see how much the business had needed support each month to function.  So I entered the data in like this:
And then i averaged it out to see what the average monthly loss was –ok i admit it… I'm naturally pessimistic) and lo and behold I got a profit of around $3 each month!!  Wow!! So there you go.  It hasn't cost me anything – in terms of dollars and cents.
What a miracle – Thanks to God  and all the wonderful donations of materials which really help in a huge, HUGE way.
So aside from the numerical figures, together we have been able to give full time employment to 5 women (with feminine figures ha ha).  Three of whom have taken out home loans from us, making monthly repayments through their salary.
  Sinta, with her husband Apoli and two nieces are standing proudly outside of their newly finished home.






Ana also took out a home loan to assist in finishing her new home- pictured here with her husband, young son and lots of family to help celebrate moving in.
     

Novi has also taken out a home loan to help finish her house for  her husband and young daughter.





Amona (Nona) is very grateful to be employed.  Not only does it provide an income for her household, but it gives her a daily activity to help her cope with some difficult family issues.
 


Ange has been travelling from the other side of the city, and has been grateful for an income to assist with the costs of raising her 4 young children.

Rewards and encouragement

Here I am writing from a comfortable lounge room in Australia.  What an overwhelming world of abundance… However, i have some lovely news to share.  I was checking facebook, and noticed that the weekly sunset market had put up some images from their final night this year.  So i browsed through the photos and to my surprise saw this:
  At first I thought the photographer had made a mistake and put up a photo from earlier in the year.  But as I looked harder I noticed a new dress,  and started to think that the bellekria women actually made it to the market by themselves!! How cool.
Another exciting picture confirmed it …
Here is Sinta receiving a certificate for “Most Creative Handicrafts”… YAY!! Apparently there were 4-5 certificates awarded to stall holders for various things.  A great encouragement to Bellekria.  I am sure that they all felt very proud.