The sewing workshop in the village of Marynychi of Ust’-Putylska territorial community has already received its first large order for sewing and branding 500 shopper bags. Many residents also come here to sew or repair fabric products, as well as to learn sewing. The workshop opened at the end of March this year with the support and assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Decentralization Offering Better Results and Efficiency (DOBRE) Program.
Previously, residents of Ust-Putylska community had to travel at the very least several dozen kilometers to get their clothes repaired. Now they own all the necessary equipment. Moreover, in the workshop, you can also learn how to cut, sew, and embroider your clothes. For local youth, this is a great chance to try their hand at it and perhaps choose their future profession.
– “We already have our first customer for a large batch of shopper bags with embroidered branding,” says Maria Ilyuk, head of the Ust-Putylska community. “We have also developed a price list for the workshop’s services, with each embroidery having its own price according to the classification. After a few months of work, we are confident in this project’s future. After all, it works not only for the community residents but will also be able to replenish our budget.
The workshop provides paid services for sewing and repairing clothes. People in the sewing business can use the equipment for a fee. If you need, for example, an original embroidered shirt, they will cut, sew, and lace it out for you. Or they will teach you how to do it yourself.
The community has also developed a separate approach for socially vulnerable categories of people and internally displaced persons: they plan to hold social events and sew first necessity clothing for them free of charge.
The total budget for this project amounted to about UAH 700 thousand. The USAID DOBRE Program purchased high-quality equipment: five sewing machines, an overlock, an ironing table and an iron with a steam generator, a cutting table, a fitting room, a clothes bracket, and the pride of the workshop – a professional automatic embroidery machine worth UAH 290 thousand.
– “This project not only allowed us to create a new service in the community but also became a training center for those residents who want to learn a new profession in sewing,” says Vitaliy Yurkiv, USAID DOBRE Local Economic Development Expert. “Importantly, there are several categories of residents in the community who have benefited from this project. High school students and young people can use it for career guidance. People who want to learn sewing can get all the necessary knowledge and practical skills here. The workshop also addresses some of the needs of socially vulnerable citizens. At the same time, everyone else now has a very affordable fabric repair service. Once again, I am convinced that such projects, which can simultaneously solve several problems, are of particular value to the community.
Two professional seamstresses work in the workshop all the time. The workshop is run by Nadiya Guzak, who has a degree in tailoring and continues to study the design and technology of garments.
– “Local people come to us and often ask us to teach them how to use the equipment. By the way, we have already sewed new curtains for the local community center before the graduation celebration,” says Nadiya Guzak. – “Frankly speaking, I never expected to have such advanced sewing equipment in my village! We plan to buy a laptop with special software to create our own patterns using the embroidery machine. We’re up to create embroidered shirts and provide services for embroidery on clothes, which is very popular now. We also hold master classes for children of the community, which they are happy to attend.
The workshop workers are confident that with the help of the media and social media, they will demonstrate their work far beyond the community. Therefore, they hope the project will have many customers for original products from the Ust’-Putyla region.
