Author: Maria

Our charity year runs from March to March. I like to gather in May, having had chance to get the paperwork complete from our previous year. It’s the one time in the year we gather in-person and it is a rich time of fellowship and fun as well as reflection and prayerful planning.

So of that fun included good food and opportunity to craft!

Reflecting on the highs and lows of the past year is important, included in these is:

• Production development to include dresses that can be continually ordered. Some of which can be seen in the fun photoshoot we did on location.

• Our increase in UK sewing hubs: developing a regional structure, where we provide a local staff team to visit a selection of locations within 40 minutes drive. Our first regional hub has been in Oxfordshire, serving Abingdon, Chipping Norton, Didcot and Witney. This is an extension of the work we have been doing in Witney for the last 18 months. Since September we have served over 80 people across the county, at 30 weekly sewing sessions: this is something to celebrate.

• Our partnership with the Mothers’ Union, which we hope will flourish as we move into our next financial year…

• Our visit to India has resulted in us being able to offer repeat order denim dressees, which have only just been posted on our shop. This is a credit to the hard work of all the ladies in India.

Our aspirations for our next financial year include:

• Use the learning we have made in our Oxfordshire hubs to seek growth in Bristol, Birmingham and potentially Derby.
• To explore ways of developing pre-production orders with at least one African sewing hub so we can model this and expand it to other hubs.
• To celebrate our 10th anniversary next year with a new product and bespoke DDP fabric prints.
• build strength in our sales and marketing opportunities by attending more summer festivals in 2025.

Watch this space and pray along with us!

We’ve been asking what ‘Sharing Love’ means to each of us. This has been a community wide activity including as many of our sewing hubs who have been interested in participating, with a focus on a new textiles exhibition called Soft Power at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol. The project involves the making of 3 dresses: one from contributions from participants from around the world at our different sewing hubs. One from participants seeking refuge in Bristol and then a paper dress from visitors to the exhibition.

This is the dress from contributions from participants for our global sewing hubs.

Participants have shared all sorts of messages about their motivation to sharing love, for example:

Nancy says “When I give a helping hand through Biblical guidance I am sharing God’s love.”

Maxmilla shares “Working together [through farming for example] in unity promotes harmony in society and strength in oneness”

Lynet challenges us to “love through encouraging people to plant trees, which helps people out of poverty and hunger.”

Salome explains “I make small handkerchiefs and give them as gifts, this is my way of blessing people and sharing love.”

Evelyn shares “offering compliments, doing acts of kindness, small gifts, giving time: these are all ways we can share love.”

Poul explains “God shares his love with us, we are more than a flower to Him.”

I asked our focus team to share who they admired… they were allowed to pick any human, past or present. Their responses are all really heartfelt.

Joy says she would like to be like Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013). He was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician and statesman who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist. Joy explains, “his selflessness and ever willingness to help, made me envy him, I wish to be someone who helps others when in need and stand for what’s right like Nelson Mandela.”

This is some role model to follow!

Emma admires her Dad, sharing “I have huge respect for my dad. As he supported me through a lot of things and still does. I like how my dad is easy to talk to and always positive and likes to get things done. And has a can-do attitude. I, too, would like to be like that. My dad told me to go for it with the sewing. During covid and so I did. And haven’t stopped since.”

Emma, I know life is not easy for you, so it is reassuring to know that your dad is close by you, when you need him.

Ezekiel admires Bosco Mutebutsi, the National coordinator of ICJ Foundation in Burundi. He explains “Bosco leads the organisation that helps many families though the teachings of word of God and the development. They make disciples of Christ who make disciples. Out of the world of God they teach young people new professions like sewing and wives the modern agriculture like to cultivate Maize. I met with him in 2016 at Ciya Hill Bubanza province where he came to teach the word of God.”

Bosco definitely has a heart to serve the people of Burundi.

Gilbert admires the RAJEDES Burundi coordinator Donatien NIBOGORA. He explains “he is a serious and humble man who works for the community without ceasing. After completing my secondary studies I decided to follow the training in sewing. I went to the Twese mu iterambere center created by RAJEDES where Donatien is coordinator. This is where we met. He became my good guide an exemplary in the simple and spiritual life.”

Yes, a gentle spirited man and worthy guide.

Esperance shares the person she admires so much is Kamariza Diane. “We met first in 2019 when I was going through alot. I had just moved from the countryside to the city with the help of a friend who knew Diane. She offered me work at her house, but it wasn’t just work. She treated me like I was her daughter. She helped me overcome my traumatic state by listening to me. I really needed someone to listen, and she was that person.
She’s very caring, and loves everyone. She has her own project that works with helping vulnerable people in the community. I aspire to be like her, possessing fruits of the spirit, such as love, joy, goodness. She taught me that God has a plan for everyone from whatever background and He uses them too, for His greater plan.”

Diane sounds so beautiful Esperance.

It has been an exciting start to 2025 as we explore how we can grow our support for people living in financial hardship in the UK. Last Autumn we moved our Witney sewing hub out of a local hotel supporting asylum seekers and moved to a local community hall. It’s been an adventure to see what a difference that can make. We’ve now started 5 sewing hubs across the county, all linked to the local church, where we can be a practical and spiritual support to people interested in sewing in these local communities.

We’ve made all sorts of things but I think the highlight has been these wonderful rag dolls which we intend to continue to dress in different cultural outfits.

We had a great time at our first trade event of 2025, taking our first event sales for this year. Our hope is to go to a few more events this coming year so maybe we’ll see you when we are out and about.

And probably the most exciting activity this Spring is the development of our Mothers’ Union collaboration dress, to celebrate 150 years of the Mothers’ Union in 2026. My friend Sazgar is busy sewing as I type! Look out for the new dress on the MU website as they launch it a the commissioning service for the worldwide president at St-Martins-in-the-Field on Monday 24th March.

If you pray then our requests are for:

• our international hubs to grow in enterprise as we explore ways to support this… with old denim jeans
• our UK hubs to places of peace where we are able to share love with one another.
• our links with corporate organisations, who might be interested in having similar dresses to the Mothers’ Union.

We were really excited to find our story over 3 pages of the Church Times! What a wonderful write up.

To read the article online visit the Church Times website – A stitch in time saves more than nine!

We employ a representative (sometimes two) from each sewing hub for one day a month (a small sustainable start that we’d like to grow and develop). We share new skills, share life and then they pass on new skills to the rest of their hub members. We thought you’d like to meet all our members.

From our first African sewing hub in Nigeria, may I introduce Joy.

Sharon and Celine are from Soroti, in the northern part of Uganda. This sewing hub is connected to the TANU vocational school.

And then we have Esperance, Ezekiel and Gilbert from Burundi.

And this is Roza and Tina from our Tanzania hub.

And lastly Abigail is setting up a sewing hub in India.

Emma has been volunteering for The Dorcas Dress Project in West Oxfordshire for the last six months. Emma loves to sew and make her own clothes, she’s recently been brave enough to buy an overlocker and use it to make our bag templates. Emma chose to volunteer with us to help build her confidence and increase her sewing knowledge.

“I enjoy learning, meeting new people and being creative. Volunteering over the last six months has built my confidence, given me routine and helped me build a stronger ‘can-do’ attitude.”

Emma has been making these lovely key straps, we’d love to show her how her creativity could become a future career option. Why not stock up now for Christmas!! These are ideal stocking fillers and great to keep small things like keys visible.

3 key straps fro £12 – visit our shop.

I have just got back from an amazing time in Uganda.  I have been blessed beyond measure and thoroughly enjoyed getting to know some of the most beautiful people I know.  Over the last few weeks I’ve met, in-person, people from 5 different sewing hubs, who have all kindly agreed to contribute in some way to my research in how we should build community as an organisation.  I’ve had the honour of training people in enterprise skills and sewing machine maintenance, preaching and making 100s of English pancakes.

I took too few pictures, sorry. But I learnt so much about community…

3 main points about community that I am currently reflecting on is:

• the importance of familiarity and belonging
• the significance of skills and development
• the value of friendship and teamwork

• the importance of familiarity and belonging

I talked with a lot of people and one of the leading themes about community was the need to belong and the importance of familiarity.  Familiarity is a funny thing because different things are familiar to all of us.  Our meals, our friendships and relationships, our lived spaces, our commutes to work, our sense of place and purpose,  but most of all our sense of being known and loved by those around us.  

• the significance of skills and development

Christine made an interesting comment whilst I spent time with her.  Christine is from Kenya and she is starting our newest hub.  Life has not been an easy ride for her, and she reminded me, “There is one thing that can not be taken away from you.  You can loose all your belongings, be robbed or abandoned, but you can never have a skill taken from you.  A skill is a treasure that should never be taken for granted.”  Over the last 12 months we’ve had the privilege of helping 75 people learn a new skill or improve an old one, in dressmaking.  That’s 75 people a little more empowered to provide for themselves or their families.   

• the value of friendship and teamwork

Whilst visiting people in the slums in Kampala I was struck by how much people cared for those around them and the love and intimacy they shared for one another.  Small children played in the streets, yet everyone had a caring eye on them.  There was always time to listen to a story, know a person and their needs and dreams.  People mattered, possessions did not.  

So, if asked, what is important to you, when you think of community?

I have just noticed how long it has been since we posted out an update, sorry.

We’ve had a busy few months. July and August was spent planning and preparing for our first festival trade stand. We went to Greenbelt: a wonderfully eclectic activism and music event. It turned out to be total success – we sold all our dress stock by the Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the weekend simply sharing with visitors what we did!

Since then we have been busy restocking, we’ve gone from an empty online shop to a really healthy selection of dresses. I hope to add more stock in the next few days…

I think the other big thing is the hopeful plans to visit some hubs – funding dependent…. As CEO, I have have been studying towards an MA in Theology and Mission through CMS. I am in my final year and about to embark on my dissertation. Our vision is to be a place where love and fellowship thrive, this research project is about discovering what that could look like. I’d love to use my research to include in-person observations and listening, which would involve travelling to Africa. We’ve set up a Crowdfunding campaign to see if we can enable this to happen.

if you’d like to help us achieve this then follow the link below to donate something towards the costs.

Which leaves me the joy of signing off.

May you each know God’s peace and grace as we walk towards Advent.

Maria

We’re building women’s self-esteem and providing an opportunity for asylum seeker’s residing in a local hotel to learn a new skill.

Over the last few months we have been visiting a hotel where over 100 families from around the world are being housed whilst their case for seeking refuge in this country is heard. Families from all sorts of places: we’ve been learning to say “hello!” and “thank you” in Farsi, Persian, Arabic, Albanian and Kurdish, for example. Each week around 20 – 30 women join us for an afternoon of sewing. Some are professional tailors, others have excellent skills passed down from their mothers and some have yet to learn. We’ve been fortunate to receive funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to help us fund the teaching and buy sewing machines. And the Mothers’ Union Diocese of Oxford have generously given funds to one of their members so they could provide 20 women with their own sewing kits. I had never really contemplated how useful my mobile phone would be to talk into and receive a translated message back. The women must have made at least 60 garments between them so far too!

It is good to get involved in activities around the village. We had a great village celebration for the King’s Coronation and we decided to participate in a village flower festival. We made lots of flowers and produced a wonderful display.

It was nice to pause whilst we made, to dedicate a flower to someone we could not hug right now, simply praying for their safety and peace in this difficult time.

We would like to branch out and offer sewing classes in other places where there is need, likely in a community hall, accessible to asylum seekers, refugees and people on low income that would love to sew, mend, alter and make clothes from donations made within their local community. We’ll provide the sewing skills, resources and training. All we ask is that there are 3 or 4 local volunteers eager to be a friendly face, a listening ear (with google translate if necessary !?!) willing to follow instruction and enable others to copy.

If you are interested please do be in touch dorcasdressproject@gmail.com