Type: Blended
PHASE: Design
CATEGORY: Education
LOCATION: Abuja, Nigeria
Sewing for Education (SEE)
Africa

Log in or register to follow or vote for this project.
It is a social entrepreneurship program that will put youths back to school, create 15 FULL TIME jobs upon take-off, provide youths technical/vocational skills for LIFE as well as sustained economic activity.

Standings & Awards

591 out of 591 in Africa
779 out of 779 in Education
935 out of 935 in Design
1066 out of 1066 in Blended
4003 out of 4003 Overall
Send unemployed youths/school dropouts back to school while giving them a technical/vocational skills for life

Sewing for Education or SEE will seek to build a small "factory" containing ten sewing machines and five embroidery machines-creating at least 15 jobs at take-off while assisting youths to continue or start attending school.

 

1st phase: 15 people who know how to sew fabrics and do embroidery on dresses will be hired for full time jobs.  Each of the 15 employees will be expected to pay a small monthly "commission" to the program for using the machine and the facility. An employee gets money by sewing or doing embroidery for customers. 100% of the collected commissions go back to the program for educating the youths, buying more sewing/embroidery machines and maintaining the machines and facility. The commission is determined in such a way that is neither big (little return to the employees, which will discourage them to work for the program) or small (small return to the program, which will eventually end the program). A “fair” medium commission will be used.

 

2nd phase: The program will begin recruiting youths after two months of take-off. Each of the recruited youth will be "attached" to an adult. The youth will serve as an "apprentice." The apprentice will basically sits close to the adult and watches the adult makes dresses or do embroidery.  As time passes on, the youth will pass from a passive learner to an active learner. As a passive learner, the apprentice just watches the adult cuts and sew dresses. As an active learner, the apprentice starts cutting and sewing dresses under a close supervision of the adult. As a former apprentice myself (the picture above, I'm on the right), after about two months of being a passive learner (an average of about 10-15hrs/week), I began to sew only a part of a dress, then I progressed to a harder part and so on until I was able to sew a complete tradition dress. All of the dresses are traditional, so they are simple and there is always demand.

  

As an incentive to participate in the program, partial financial assistance from the profits will be awarded to an apprentice who completes the program-learns how to sew fabrics or do embroidery. The award will go towards their education.

 

FIVE PROJECT QUESTIONS Required (60 - 90 minutes)

1. What is your innovation? 
Providing a life-time skills (sewing) while at the same time sending youths to school. A win-win situation for the youths, who are more than half of the population in Nigeria with a staggering school dropout rate of 1/3.
2. Who gains the most? 
The youths gain the most. They will acquire technical skills, go back to school with assistance from the program as well as the money they will make from establishing their own sewing business or gainfully employed as a result of the skills (sewing) they will acquire..
3. Who pays? 
The starting capital will be sought through donations and medium like DSIC. Once the program takes-off, it will be self-sustaining.
4. What is your success? 
Upon take-off= 15 full time jobs, withing 12 months= 15 youths will acquire sewing/embroidery skills, within 12 months= the 15 youths will receive partial financial assistance from the income of the program that will go towards their education, within 3 years= at least 45 youths will be trained and sent to school as well. Because the program will continue to expand through buying more sewing/embroidery machines, the number of youths that will be trained will grow exponentially.
5. How will you do it? 
1. Build and equip the facility with sewing/embroidery machines 2. Hire skilled seamstress/tailors 3. Recruit youths as apprentice to be trained by the skilled workers 4. An apprentice who completes the program (knows how to sew etc) will be assisted financially to start or continue school 5. Another sets of apprentice will be recruited 6. All of these trends will be possible because of the high income to expenditure ratio which will bring about expansion of the program

Members

samdanko's picture
Adamu Muhammad