Sumathi - Instructor with her batch of women(Tailoring)

 Shoshana sewing projects at Chilakaluripet town.

Sumathi the instructor is from an agricultural background. Housewife, taking care of the family and children, learnt stiching as a hobby.


After marriage she moved to Chilakaluripet where she happened to live in an area where all the tribal people from different parts of A.P settled.  Mostly daily workers, rickshaw pullers and other small jobs.

Having an idea of supporting those women, She approached Shoshana and started a sewing centre for them and has been training them from the year 2006.

Swetha - instructor with her batch of women.

 Swetha instructor for Embroidery and Painting. She is the daughter of Sumathi. Even though finished her education in Business Management, instead of taking up job related to her study, she opted for helping the needy women for their self help.

So far  83 women got training here and majority of the women are successful in setting up their self employment.

 Work on sarees made by the previous students

Mrs.Martha interacting with the women

Bapatla sewing project

Bapatla - Guntur district is the place where we visited yesterday.

We have our Shoshana sewing centre at Driver's colony, Bapatla.
Mrs. Manjula is the tailoring instructor. Single parent to two sons. Husband left her very young and for the last 11years she has been taking care of her children alone with the support of Shoshana besides taking care of the needy women in her area teaching them sewing and handicraft work like embroidery and painting. One of the sons of Manjula finished his Engineering and he is very much interested in supporting the work of Shoshana in future.

Women coming to the free classes are mostly daily workers and domestic helpers. Young girls who are drop outs from school working as servant maids to support their parents and two even took up the whole responsibility of running the family.

Former student

 The women who finished their classes started working on their own and we went to the house of one of the previous students living near the sewing centre.

Her name is Lakshmi. Husband is a carpernter and they also have a small road side hotel. Besides this the training at Shoshana sewing centre, Bapatla helped her in starting her own work as a tailor.

Pics from our visit from our very first Sewing project in Guntur. Presently it is located in Rajiv Gandhi nagar, Guntur.

 Training needy women in tailoring has been going on for the last 12 years with Mrs. Nirmala as the instructor and recently painting and embroidery classes also started with Kamala as the instructor. at the same place.

Nirmala - Tailoring instructor

Mrs. Martha with a student

Some of the women students coming to the classes are drop outs from school because of the family financial situations. Few are housewives who are in need of work to support their families.

 Same students for both tailoring and embroidery classes.  Women almost at the end of the training course.

Women started making hand work and painting on sarees for sale.

Giving enough time for the class is also difficult thing for them since they have to work for their living. Working besides learning gives them some income and also enough practice for their future business.

Kamala(instructor) to the right with the students

S

Visit to Shoshana Sewing Centre, Venkatapaiah colony, Guntur.

First visit to one of our sewing projects along with Martha.- Sep-13

Our sewing project at Venkatapaiah colony, Guntur.  Anitha is the sewing and embroidery instructor.

Pics showing students supervised by the instructor and Martha with the students and their working.

Anitha showing the samples made by the students to Martha

Martha with a student

 Majority of the women here are part time workers. Mainly daily workers in Chilli yard. Chilli pickers in the fields and at the yard. Depending on the hours they work they get 150- 200 rupees a day but the work is seasonal.

Working for the living is compulsory for them since all of them are from needy families and it is necessary for them to support for the household. Even in the sewing centre after they reach certain level, the instructor allots them work with which they could earn some money while learning.

Mrs.Martha( Managing Director - Shoshana ) arrived yesterday from States. It was a long and tiring journey but she managed to come to Chirala safely.

Our work - Visiting the projects starts from 2nd Sep-13 i.e Monday and  I shall upload the visit details and necessary information along with pics from time to time.

Best wishes to all the friends of Shoshana.

Nurse Jayaraju at Swarna medical centre

Nurse Jaya raju working at Shoshana Medical Centre , Swarna village.

Nurse Jayaraju with the patient

 Jayaraju has been working with Shoshana for quite time at our Medical Centre, Prasada Nagaram, Chirala. He has lots of working experience in different hospitals with different specialist doctors. Recently he took up additional responsibility of giving medical help at Swarna village too.

New nurse at Shoshana medical centre, Railway area, Chirala.

New nurse at Shoshana medical centre, Railway area, Chirala.

Nurse, Lavanya at the centre

Lavanya, the new nurse is a trained nurse especially in mid wifery. Has 15 years experience in different private hospitals. Self employed and has her own first aid clinic for the last 4 years.


She is single, Christian. Having the experience of working with a charitable organization in her previous service years, she is always service minded and has the heart for the poor so she agreed to join Shoshana to give medical aid for the needy in that slum.