The Iraqi Charities Forum has launched its first course in the art of tailoring. It is being run as part of the Charity Bank’s training and development programme in association with the Protect the People from Pollution organisation. The launch took place on Monday, 27^thSeptember at the organisation’s headquarters in Al-Graiaat. Eighteen women who have signed up to the Charity Bank project took part.

The course kicked off with a speech by a representative for the Forum, in which he urged the women taking part to make the most of this golden opportunity which was set up with them in mind to help them develop their capabilities and hone their skills. He also stressed how important it was to show their commitment to the project by turning up on time.

After this Mrs Zahra Al-Bassam, the volunteer in charge of the programme, began the training which covered both theory and practice. The first hour was spent on theory and focussed on how to cut out and design the clothes which, in Mrs Al-Bassam’s words, is the key to the whole sewing profession. She gave a detailed explanation of this process and demonstrated by example how to sew a pair of men’s trousers. She then went over some points that may have not been understood and took questions from several trainees, before giving them some time to take down notes and sketches from the blackboard.

At 2pm they put into practice what they had learned by making their own pair of trousers based on the instructor’s template. The trainees practised first on an industrial sewing machine before moving onto a household one, to find out which one they were better at.

To see how much of the lesson had really sunk in, Mrs Al-Bassam then asked the trainees to make another pair of trousers for homework. She arranged for each of them to be given a piece of fabric between 1.25 and 1.5m long, and told them to make it in a size of their choice, again using her example as a guide.

The feedback from the first day of the course was very positive. The trainees reported that they were extremely satisfied with the instruction they received which they definitely needed since some of them lacked basic tailoring skills. The women said that this was the first time they had enrolled on a training course. In other words, all the tailoring knowledge they had came from what they had learnt at home or from neighbours.

Mrs Al-Bassam said she was impressed with the turn-out which was more than double what she had anticipated. She also praised all the women who attended for genuinely wanting to benefit from the course and develop their personal skills. This will encourage her to work even harder to train more people to the point where they can work as professional seamstresses.

The course will run for five weeks until November 2^nd