Category

• Interesting Local Practice

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Poverty impact

• Mitigation
• Reduction

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Poverty driver

• Provide benefit in-kind (material)
• Provide benefit in-kind (experience)
• Increase employment income

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Keywords

• Community Engagement
• Education
• Empowerment
• Training
• Clothing

Aim

The project aims to bring together women from ethnic minority backgrounds to learn sewing skills, increase their confidence, and access employment.

Summary

DAWSUN Sewing Hub and Free Clothing Exchange Hub provided free textile training for ethnic minority and low-income women. The project helped in building confidence and supporting pathways into employment, with some clients progressing into paid sewing and alteration roles. The Sewing Hub has now ended. The Free Clothing Exchange Hub continues to run monthly, offering free clothes, shoes and bags to the wider community, including items repaired or altered through the project.

What difference does it make?

The Project made a difference to the service users through:
• Increasing the women's sewing skills.
• Improved their English communication skills.
• Boosted the women's confidence to engage in income-generating activities.
• Provided an opportunity for the women involved to built lasting friendships and a sense of community.
• Enabled progression into paid employment for some participants.
• Increased household income.
• Contributed to poverty reduction.
• Enhanced personal empowerment through employment-relevant skills.

Key take-aways

• Dedicated volunteers are a must for a successful project.
• Strong referral/publicity is also very important.
• A bus/car is necessary to make the collection of used items a lot easier.

 

Organisations

Disapora African Women’s Support Network (DAWSUN).

Location

Glasgow

Contact