Name of the student : Hafeeza

Hafeeza is also one of the students from Sewing project, Bapatla.

She is an illiterate, housewife. She is married for 5yrs and has a son who is 4yrs of age.
Her husband is a daily worker but because of his alcoholic habit he suffered from liver problem and he died six months back.

Hafeeza was left alone and she had to work as a servant maid to earn her living.  Her in-laws also were not ready to allow her to stay with them since they were not willing to take up the responsibility of her and her son.

Presently she is living with her mother who is also a widow and she is helping her mother in her vegetable selling business. She joined the course mainly because she will have a chance to set up a tailoring shop besides her mother's business and gives her support in running the family.  She couldn't afford to get the training class from outside which would be costly for her but she is very happy now that many people are helping her to get a class which makes her life better.

Name of the student:  Guravamma

Guravamma is one of the students from Shoshana sewing centre, Bapatla.
She is a young girl of 15yrs of age. She is a drop out and her parents couldn't afford to send her to school since  her father has a very small job and he has to take care of  5 members. They are living in a small rented house.

She has one elder sister and two younger brothers.
She and her elder sister were out of school and they started working as domestic helpers in order to support their family. Her mother was very sick and she passed away last year.

From then on they have more trouble at home. Her father is a Gas stove repair guy and he earns very small income. Since he is an alchoholic  he uses up all his money for his drinking and he is away from home most of the time. Guravamma and her sister has to work to run their house and to take care of their younger brothers who are in school. Infact sometimes they have to provide money for their father.

Manjula, our instructor from Sewing project,, Bapatla came to know about her situation and encouraged her to join the class and showed special interest in training her. Sometimes if necessary she made special timings for her since she has to work for her living.
 This training gives her some scope to earn more  and make her living better.

Guravamma with instructor Manjula

Situations like this in the lives of some people at a very young age shows how difficult it is to get on but with the help of many donors  they are really privileged to get one more chance to make their lives better.

Our second visit on dated 2/11 is to a Sewing centre in Bapatla, Guntur District.

The sewing centre is located in Driver's colony which is more towards the coast of Bapatla. Manjula rani is the instructor here and this is her  third batch of training class here in this area.

Instructor Manjula and Martha

Majority of Driver's colony is with people who are daily workers. Government gave them land to put up temporary shelters.

Majority of girls in this batch are very needy and besides their regular work as a coolie they need some other alternative work with which they could earn their living when they are out of work. They are making out time for this class of tailoring and embroidery. They already started making clothes which they could sell.

Girls are drop outs and they took the responsibilities of supporting their large families along with their parents. Each one has a background story  and the situations in which they are leading their lives and struggling for their living.

They started the training class in Aug-12 . Here is a group picture of present batch of women.

Out of the 8 students i would like to share the stories of two girls from this batch in my next post.

hello,


As i said the other day we started our visits to the projects from 1st of Nov-12 as scheduled.

We have cyclone weather right now and it is raining heavily for the last two days all along the coastal line especially in Nellore, Prakasam and Guntur Dts. We had difficulty in reaching the project in that heavy rain.

Our first visit is to Shoshana sewing centre, Guntur, our very first project.

Both Nirmala and Kamala( instructors) are working with their batch of women. Even in that heavy rain all the women were present.

Nirmala with her students

Nirmala has 8 students right now and they are almost at the end of the tailoring training.

Nirmala and Martha watching the students work

Same batch of women under the training of Kamala. Embroidery and painting classes also at the end of the course.

The trainees in this batch are mostly middle aged women who are daily workers. They make time for the stitching class.

 Students already started making different patterns on sarees.

Small carry bags with paintings

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Kamala(Instructor for (Painting & Embroidery) made special advanced course  in painting recently in order to be up to date with the current trend.

These women are very happy that they have a chance to learn the expensive courses for free of cost at Shoshana sewing centre and they are very grateful to the donors for their help and for giving them an opportunity to  utilize their skills for their economic progress.

Kamala with her daughter

Hello friends,

Our Managing Director  (Shoshana) Mrs.Martha B Foerch arrived in India safely for her half yearly visit, second visit for this year.

Our visit schedule to our respective projects starts from 1st Nov-12.


I will update our project reports along with pics from time to time.

Few pics from Sewing project, Giripuram, Vijayawada.


This time they have 13 women in the batch. Usually they have 10 women but many women are interested this time so the instructor Hemima made special timings for the batch so everybody has enough time.

Hemima the instructor is taking good care of the women here during the training and also after they finish the course. She sees that they get settled down with their business.

Not only the training she is really helpful in supporting them to get through their family problems and sometimes even financially helping them.

The centre is not only a tailoring centre but also like a shelter home for the needy women.

Pics of new batch of women for tailoring and embroidery training at Shoshana sewing centre, Vijayawada.

Instructor, Srivani along with the students

Srivani, one of our senior instructors along with her husband who is a retired Railway employee has been working here in the old city of Vijayawada for the past 30 years for the benefit of poor women.

She was a teacher by profession but has been training needy women in stitching  in her leisure time . Once she started working with Shoshana in 2001 she took up this work as a full time profession. The area where she started working was a very slum area mainly with muslim community where women were not allowed to go out for work.

Coolies with large families living in very small huts in terrible conditions. Tailoring is a very good income source for them with which they could earn from their home. Free training classes provided with necessary materials  really helped  them for their self help.

Many previous students who finished their course were successful in their work.


Srivani is still very active in giving her services and is helping the women  with the same interest as she was in the beginning.