Soniya explores new economic opportunities

Soniya is a 14-year old girl who sells old clothes on the streets to earn money. She lives with her parents and siblings, all of whom do the same work, as they have been doing for generations. Between themselves, the family earns approximately 3,000 rupees ($60) combined each month.

Over the years, Soniya’s family has noticed that the demand for used clothes is dwindling as cheap imported clothes have flooded the market and consumers would rather buy new clothes instead of the used items that the family sells.

Soniya recently joined the AIC Basic Tailoring course because many of her friends were joining and she saw an opportunity to learn a skill that would augment her clothes selling business.

As a member of the class, Soniya is learning tailoring for 2 hours each day, and has unlimited access to the sewing machines at the community centre to practise on, when class is not in session. She hopes that once she completes the Basic course, she will be able to move on to the Intermediate class and maybe even the Advanced course, by which point she will have more than enough practice to be able to start taking custom sewing orders.

If Soniya works hard and excels as a seamstress, she will easily be able to double her family’s meager income, because she will be able to repair the clothes that they sell, thereby increasing their value.

One of Soniya’s favorite parts of the class is the literacy component. She attended school only for a few weeks in the first grade, and is making full use of the opportunity to learn to read and write for the first time in her life. She knows that she will need those skills to create a booming, successful tailoring business of her own and is grateful to have the opportunity to learn them!

Thank you so much, Sam and Joel (x5), for coming together to provide an entire tailoring course to Soniya, thereby allowing her to learn a marketable skill!