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! :)

 

 

 

 

Celeste’s vision

A year ago, we met a lovely group of people from Vic.  They stayed with us for a short time, and while here they visited Bellekria.   Celeste was one of them.  Not only did she bless us with her very caring heart and fun/friendly attitude but she also grasped the needs of women in regards to the cloth pads we were making. 

On returning to Australia she spoke with a few womens groups and put together a power point.  She encouraged women to sponser one complete cloth pad  set for one Timorese woman every month.   Since she returned to Australia she has forwarded donations which have allowed us to distribute pads to many women in rural/remote areas of Timor.

.Recently she had a vision to hold an event in her local Community Centre.  A number of other energetic and generous people have pulled together to support her dream and she is holding an evening in Hastings VIC. 

It has been astonishing for me! A fundraising event solely for the production and distribution of cloth pads – the reason why Bellekria first began.  It is so exciting for me that others would see the pressing need and put so much of themselves into assiting!

Obrigada Barak (thankyou very much) Celeste, and all the others that have helped arrange this event, and everyone who attends/supports the foundational dream of Belekria.

First an explanation

I am so so sorry that updates have been so few and far between.   It actually does not reflect the activities and developments for Bellekria.

My excuses and explanations are briefly and humbly offered below….

1. First and most frustrating has been the sad failings of out local internet access.  The past 2 months have been very difficult to get any internet access,  which for me has meant that when, on the rare times it works efficiently, I must prioritise and unfortunately, perhaps wrongly, this Bellekria blog has been down a few pegs on the list, HOWEVER, we have just discovered a way for me to create the blog here at home and Samuel can then upload it through another internet system at his work.  So in theory that should mean I will be updating the blog every 2 weeks or so.

2. Only second because it hasn't impacted on my internet access so much….

I am  very VERY happy to announce I am pregnant with our 3rd child.  Its been a long awaited blessing, and all 4 of us are very excited!  I am coming towards 3 months, so am beginning to stabilise a bit, but for the last 5 weeks i have been quite nauseas and basically needing to eat a meal every 2 hours all day.  I have also been very tired and exhausted physically, so it has been a major effort for me to teach the kids all day, and then I kind of crash in the afternoon and often go to bed at the same time or even before the kids do!

I am hoping that in another month I will feel less fragile, and will have more energy to devote to my broader tasks – such as bellekria!

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A Sewers Delight.

I noticed a few weeks ago that our stock of fabrics was getting low, and thought to myself, “I had better do a trip to the sewing shop and restock”.  But you know how it is – Gods sewing shop is a lot more exciting!

We got the call from Rotary to say the next container was getting unloaded.  My parents in Maclean (NSW) had organised a another pallet load of sewing room supplies.   We brought the boxes containing fabric to the sewing room and the girls had fun inspecting every single piece and designating what it should get made into - “A long dress! ooh lovely”  “A shirt for church in this”, “A mans shirt” “Put this on the pants pile”  It was cute to watch.

    They all LOVED a leopard print…. must be in fashion here.

There was also many bundles of flannelette inserts.  A lot of these went straight into packaging with a waiting cloth pad.  Its exciting to see a large stock of pads in the cupboard, although I will of course prefer it when we move them out to women.

On the business side of things, the dynamics of the room seem to be mores settled, and its a bit quiet in the sales side of things, so in some ways I am glad that only 3 women have been coming.  Anna is still taking maternity leave until her little boy has balanced safety sense with his new walking skills. :)

My first firing.

Well this week Ii have done the hardest job for me yet.  I fired one of my girls!

What a difficult thing to do!  

It has been an issue for a while and in the past she has had a few altercations with Sinta, and recently accused Sinta (unjustly) of stealing.  All of the others have also been finding it very difficult to work with her, and I decided that the business would flow better if she left.  Aggh!  What a decision!. 

So on Tuesday we closed up and in the afternoon I visited Novi and explained my reasoning and my decision.  She was quite accepting and unsurprised which implied to me that she understood why it had to happen.  I explained to her that some of her behaviours made it very difficult for her to work with others and I encouraged her (again) to try and improve these qualities so that in the future if she found work again she could work with others more smoothly, and also perhaps improve some of her damaged family relationships.

On Monday the “situation” developed to an actual physical altercation, although it didn't quite get violent (our landlord Anen apparently jumped through the opening in the wall to break them up.)  Therefore it wasn't suitable for her to return again as the others were quite unsettled and afraid,  so I didn't give her much warning I’m afraid.  To make up for that I gave her a small redundancy package.  I hope that sounds fair!  I suppose in Australia she could have been charged for false accusations and assault.  I dunno.   It just feels bad ending someone's employment.

Anyway she took it pretty well.

On a positive note, I think the vibe of the room will significantly improve, and the others will be more content…..

In my conversation with her, I let her know that I was not closing my door to her, and that if in the future she had a request she was welcome to come and ask me.  I encouraged her to consider working from home and offered her the option to purchase one of the electric machines sent over from Australia.

She was very interested in that possibility and yesterday she arrived to seal the deal.  She was just leaving the front yard with her chosen machine when I remembered to get a photo, so she graciously paused and posed for me.

More presents leads to more storage!!

How exciting it is when we receive a phone call from the local Rotary rep. letting us know the container will be unloaded.  Samuel and Bevan (a visitor) raced off to be there as the first boxes were removed.  Guess whose gear was right there at the door?  That's right, so for the first time it only took an hour  and they were back with a fully loaded Suzuki.

We received another half dozen machines, which we actually hope to share out to other organisations as we have enough in our sewing room at present.  Samuel was approached at the container by a woman who requested a machine or two. We hope she will be able to come and pick some up sometime.

We also received  some boxes filled with fabric, flannelette even a bunch of pre cut and hemmed flannelette inserts!! Wonderful!  As Samuel had the afternoon free(ish) he set up some plywood and cut some pieces with Bevans help, and then left Bevan to finish screwing them together.  He did a fine job and the 4 shelves looked huge!

We carried them into the sewing room this morning and by early afternoon they looked like this…

We now have floor space! Can you see it there?  And the fabric is easy to access as opposed to rummaging through cardboard boxes.  Two shelves have clothing neatly folded, one shelf has flannelette inserts for nappies and pads. And so many other shelves…. Don't you just love storage?

Many many thanks to Bevan and Samuel for giving their time to build these wonderful assets for Bellekria.

On a side note, when I went to take this picture they were busy measuring up a young girl and drafting a robe for a church ritual.  I think its a freebie which is fine with me.

  They are getting really good at drafting and designing.