Sewing Program

While many of the Fondasyon Dauphin students have excelled in the classroom, academics are not every child’s strength and so the foundation also provides additional learning opportunities.  These opportunities are especially important for teenagers and young adults who have not yet completed primary school and feel uncomfortable sitting in the classroom with smaller children. They often stop attending school.  For young girls, this can lead to early pregnancy.

To provide vocational training to help young women generate income to support themselves, we began offering a sewing program. Even though much of the clothing purchased for everyday wear is imported, there are still opportunities to earn a living making uniforms and clothing for special occasions. Uniforms are a very important part of the social fabric in Borgne.  Each school, community group, club and even choir aspires to have their own uniform which signifies membership. Having a uniform also indicates that a person is a important contributor and valued member of the larger community.

A generous grant funded the purchase of eight treadle sewing machines and Friends of Borgne funds two sewing teachers as well as the necessary teaching materials like fabric and thread for the classes.  The young women learn to use patterns, sewing with the sewing machines, and other hand sewing techniques like embroidery, crochet and macrame. We have already trained three classes of sewing students, with the older class students helping to assist the newer students.  Some of our students have gone on to establish businesses making uniforms and the sewing program class also helped sew the uniforms for our scout band.