Our Mission:
Empower.
SEW is a collective of Syrian widows who learn the skills of sewing, business ownership, and community transformation.
Noor’s Story
Noor Was Desperate
Noor used to sew as a hobby in Syria.
Then the war happened.
Her husband was killed; her family was scattered; she and her three children fled to Lebanon. She helped write the statistics: a woman is the sole provider for 1 in 4 Syrian refugee households.
To make ends meet, she worked harvesting potatoes and carrots, enduring the scorching sun and the oppressive harassment of the men in charge. True, she didn’t see much of her kids, but the 12-hr. shifts provided her just enough to rent the parcel of land where she pitched her tent.
Noor Overcame The Impossible
After we befriended her and trained her, Noor began to flourish. She honed her skills. She learned embroidery. She caught a vision of what it meant to take charge of her own self-dignifying labor.
In the end, she told us that working as a seamstress felt like “living a dream.” Her skills, the business model, and the collective of 40 widows we’ve empowered all work together to enable her to spend valuable time with her kids and see them grow. It also positions her to help train the next Noor.
She’s no longer a recipient of aid.
She’s an agent of change. A seamstress. A widow. A woman.
A powerful woman.
Help Us Empower the Next Noor
Join with us to help train and outfit the next Noor. Our process has been honed throughout the years:
1) Find widows.
2) Train them to sew in groups.
3) Identify the ones showing initiative and give them more responsibility.
4) Once they pass the seamstresses’ quality control tests, pair them up and outfit each team with a sewing machine, cloth, decorations, and sundries.
5) Begin finance coaching, emergency fund education, profit management, and best-practices for small start-ups.
6) Watch the next Noor flourish and transform.
7) Smile as the next Noor finds new widows and begins training them and envisioning them
8) Celebrate as Noor and the next Noor stitch back together torn Syrian communities.
