The Rotary Club of Sydney Darling Harbour has helped set up a Sewing School in Nepal to allow impoverished women to learn sewing and tailoring skill so they can earn income in their own right. Sewing machines have been purchased and instructors engaged. The school has trained more than 43 women to date.

The major beneficiaries of this project are the women who are taught, their immediate families, extended families and the communities they are a part of. By providing sewing and tailoring training to the women who are poor and the victims of natural and man-made circumstances they are being empowered with skills that will enable them to secure a living either by setting up their own business or having the skills to secure employment. They are also making and selling kits similar to Days for Girls sanitary pad kits for income generation and enhancing the health and wellbeing of the women in these remote communities

Besides having been given the skills for income generation, the participants self-esteem and self-worth is boosted as many families have suffered greatly since the terrible earthquake.

The Darlings have provided 25 sewing machines and interlockers, plus the funds for a teacher to the Creative Womens Group in Banepa – Nepal. This school, part funded by a district grant, has been set up to provide a sustainable and self -funding model that will increase the education and economic strength of the women in the village. The women are also to be linked with the Days for Girls program which will ensure that the sewing students are able to make sanitary protection for their school aged girls to allow them a full and uninterrupted education.