Sewing the Gaps Between Poverty and Empowerment  

In the Maya village of Pueblo Viejo, women and girls are taking steps to empower themselves, despite their financial situations. The Taiwan Technical Mission and the Ministry of Rural Transformation are working together to offer the women of the Tumul U.J. Pueblo Mopan Women’s Group sewing lessons with the goal of helping them reach financial security and one day, pass on the skills to the younger generation. The initiative is part of the Enhancing Women in Belize in the Covid-19 Post Pandemic Era project. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with more information.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

In the village of Pueblo Viejo, a remote community in southern Belize, a group of sixteen women joined forces to help pull each other out of financial insecurity. These are the members of the Tumul UJ Pueblo Mopan Women’s Group who will now be enrolled in the Taiwan Technical Mission program where they will learn a valuable skill that has supported Belizean women and families for decades, sewing.

 

Oscar Requena, Minister of Rural Transformation

“Today, my friends, is about celebrating this wonderful project that the Tumul group is going to benefit from. And really what this project seeks to do is really to provide training for our women to improve their entrepreneurial skills, to improve their sewing skills to improve their, you know, the collaborative effort of working together and to be able to pass on those traditional and cultural skills that our women have. You know, when we look at the women who are out there and you see that beautiful embroidery that they have. That’s so wonderful. So wonderful. And, you know, our women, they know how to embroider this, how to sew, how to But it’s not sufficient for them only to know. We want them to pass it on to the children. We want them to be able to share it with our other beautiful cultures and beliefs. And we want them to see it as an opportunity for you to be able to make some money.”

 

The women will learn the basics of sewing and maintaining sewing equipment. At the end of the course, the participants will be able to create their own outfits and possibly sew uniforms for school children. Coordinator of the group, Dalia Sho, explained what we can expect from this training.

 

Dalia Sho, Coordinator

“So the program will be three months, two weeks for the duration of the classes. They’re going to learn the basic to a full course sewing, which is measurement and so forth, learning the basic when it comes to the machines, the different parts, how to take care of your machines, because that’s very important, because that’s the tool that they’re going to use throughout the course, as well as learning basic measurements, that’s also when it comes to knowledge, building those math skills and so forth. And also, whenever they are finished within the course, they will be able to make their own outfit, for example. They will be able to produce not only for themselves, but also for the children that they have, and also maybe at the end, they will be able to vendor some uniforms for the school children especially. And from here, after they graduate, which is going to be sometime in the ending of September, first week of October they’re gonna give back to the community in the sense that we want to empower not only women as well, but our children.”

 

Sho said that she has been attempting to get the project underway for nearly three years. This year, the proposal was approved by the Taiwan technical mission. Taiwanese Ambassador Lily Li-Wen Hsu shares her excitement about the program.

 

 

 

 

H.E. Lily Li-Wen Hsu, Ambassador of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to Belize

“Talking about partnership. The most important one is the local partner.  So, to implement the project, we need to collaborate with local partners in this program. I’m particularly pleased to have such a like-minded partner, the tumble who women’s group. I learned that this group was established by 16 dedicated women committed to empower underprivileged women in the community who struggled during covid. And this is the exact reason. Why the Taiwan government initiated this women’s empowerment project. We want to help those women, those underprivileged to support themselves  because they were the one who been hit most hard, the hardest hit hard during the pandemic.  And we want to help the women to recover and through the women, because women is the agent of change. Through women, you can change the community.”

 

The goal of the project is not only to create opportunities for the women to grow financially, but to cultivate a community that strives towards greater achievements.

 

Oscar Requena

“I want to say to you, find the time to meet, to work together, to share together, to laugh together, to enjoy the successes of your project.  And today, this is the beginning. for joining me. We want you to build on this success. And I hope that in the coming years, we are going to see that coming out of Pueblo Viejo, coming out of this training that you are receiving, that you are going to participate, that we are going to see our young people, our young girls, our young boys, you know, benefit from these skills that you are going to learn. And that one day, we can see that the products that you produce are can be out there for sale for the tourists, you know, for the export market, the opportunities are endless.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.