Sewing for a future

The young Australian founder of a sewing school for African orphans is urgently seeking donations of fabrics and trimmings from the fashion industry.
Patricia Cuciti - a volunteer for NGO Aid for Africa down under (AFADU) - is on the hunt for excess stock including fabrics, buttons, threads, zippers and trouser hooks for the Lirhanzo Children's Village Sewing Workshop in south east Zimbabwe.
"Caesar Textiles in Marrickville [Sydney] has definitely said it will help, while I'm awaiting confirmation from [fabric wholesalers] Charles Parsons and Greenfields, [the latter of which] has already assisted in the past," Cuciti said.
The items were needed before November 28 when AFADU's annual shipment to the village would leave, she added.
Cuciti - a 2001 fashion technology graduate from Sydney's Ultimo College - founded the workshop in July to train orphaned women in clothing production and provide school uniforms for local orphans.
While the donated items were required to kick-start the project, the long-term plan was for the orphans to purchase the required materials from local suppliers, she said.
"Creating a self sufficient sewing workshop creates an income generating project run solely to benefit the orphans, with all funds re-invested into workshop and their careers," she said.
AFADU also aims to raise around $180,000 over the next 12 months to fund the provision of enhanced health and housing facilities and expand the Lirhanzo Children's Village orphanage - which currently cares for 50 orphans - to house around 120 children.
The sewing workshop would ultimately form part of a vocational training and community centre, providing a broad range of training programs, including carpentry for male orphans, Cuciti said.
Her ambitions do not stop at the Lirhanzo Children's Village however.
"We're hoping to be able to replicate the project elsewhere. Why not throughout the whole of Africa?"