Resourcing a sewing workshop for women in Luanda, after 24 finished our literacy pilot

The story

Last year we paid for a literacy course in Luanda, Angola. 29 women signed up and 24 finished. Most of the money went on transport, and once we covered it, attendance climbed from about 50% to about 80%.

The pilot did what we hoped. It also showed the limit: reading alone rarely gets a woman earning.

The literacy cohort in Luanda with their certificates. 24 of the 29 who signed up finished.

A second experiment

So we want to try the other thing. Ella Africa also runs vocational classes, and sewing is the one that actually leads to income: school uniforms, alterations, and sewing work picked up locally. What they do not have is machines of their own.

Ella Africa's sewing trainees today, working around a single machine.

If passed, we will buy 8 industrial sewing stations and put them in a shared workshop at Fábrica de Sabão, an innovation hub in Luanda. Ella Africa owns them and the hub hosts them, under an agreement covering who looks after them and what happens if the arrangement ends. Each cohort is 16 women, training for 3 months, and the stations stay when the cohort leaves. Between classes the stations are open to the rest of the hub's members, who pay a small fee that is set aside for repairs.

Ella Africa's literacy classes, the programme this workshop follows.

What it does not do

The grant buys the machines and the first cohorts' materials, and nothing after that: trainers, the space and the running of the workshop are Ella Africa's and the hub's to carry. And the repair fund does not exist yet. It is meant to come from a usage fee the hub has not started charging.