Empowering women through stitching & tailoring classes

At least 1,000 women each month will learn tailoring and how to run a small tailoring business from their homes. Women enter the course not knowing the basics; they leave with a means to a livelihood and the capacity to provide for their own families sewing needs.

Poverty remains widespread in India’s struggling economy with hard hit. Widows and separated women are especially vulnerable to unemployment and poverty. In order to help widows and separated women along with  other women Plan to Empower began tailoring classes to several slum and rural areas. These classes teach women to sew a wide variety of clothing from patterns which they can then sell.

During the tailoring course, women learn to compute budgets for clothing and savings from making their own clothes. They learn to design and make a variety of clothes. Health, peace, and women’s rights lessons are also taught during class.

Women learn to save money they would have spent on clothes in order to purchase a sewing machine and start a small business. Course graduates sew their family’s clothes, start a home-based business, and/or become sewing teachers.