Sewing Center

MALAKI DEVELOPPEMENT Center- Pointe Noire

Malaki Devel­oppe­ment

MALAKI DEVELOPPEMENT Cen­ter opened its doors in Novem­ber 2004 with two stu­dents and soon the num­ber increased to five. Dur­ing and after the fes­tiv­i­ties of Malaki ma Kongo fes­ti­val, held in August 2005, a strong aware­ness cam­paign was launched and the results arrived soon. The num­ber of stu­dents increased from 5 to 23: 18 in sewing and 5 in hair­dress­ing.
MALAKI DEVELOPPEMENT Cen­ter works to teach young moth­ers the arts of sewing and hair­dress­ing. The Cen­ter also receives com­mands for clothes to be sent to Angola, Italy and France.
Dur­ing the aca­d­e­mic year 2005-2006, we had con­tacts with some Con­golese Author­i­ties, par­tic­u­larly with the Depart­ment of Pro­mo­tion of Women in Kouilou, directed by Ms. Anne Marie Mam­pouya. We were also approached by some con­sul­tants of World Bank, which had included MALAKI DEVELOPPEMENT Cen­ter in their Project of Sup­port to Basic Edu­ca­tion (PRAEBASE). Ms. Yolande Bah­esi Nta­lany Anas­tasie, Chief of MALAKI DEVELOPPEMENT Cen­ter in Pointe Noire, was selected at a regional level as a mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee for the Selec­tion of Cen­ters to be Sup­ported. This indi­cates the impor­tance the Region places on our efforts.
Dur­ing the aca­d­e­mic year 2006-2007 the Project of Sup­port to Basic Edu­ca­tion (PRAEBASE) sent us 10 trainees in sewing and 5 in hair­dress­ing .
Our sewing train­ing is divided into 4 phases:
Phase-A:     Stu­dents learn but­ton­hole and bast­ing.
Phase-B:     Stu­dents learn to trace and cut fab­ric and bring pieces together to obtain the desired shape. Reassem­bly­ing fab­ric pieces allows our trainees to improve their pre­ci­sion in sewing
Phase-C:     Stu­dents learn the­ory and prac­tice of human body mea­sure­ment: neck, chest, waist hip, thigh, etc.. … They also learn pre­sent­ing cut paper mod­els.
Phase-D:     Stu­dents learn cut­ting and sewing.
At MALAKI DEVELOPPEMENT Cen­ter, our train­ing priv­iledges a prac­ti­cal dimen­sion. To com­pen­sate for our lack of equip­ment, we stim­u­late stu­dents to be prac­ti­cal, invit­ing them to bring tis­sue from home on which they will prac­tice. This way school activ­i­ties can be accom­plished even dur­ing dif­fi­cult time.
In gen­eral, our stu­dents and their par­ents are sat­is­fied with our teach­ing. But we must rec­og­nize that we work in quite dif­fi­cult con­di­tions. We do not reach the cruis­ing speed that can guar­an­tee us auton­omy of action. Ms. Nanite­lamio Mireille, Chief of the Hair Dress­ing sec­tion, also pre­sented the dif­fi­cul­ties of her classes. The only hair drier they used is no longer in good con­di­tion … All this is to say that there's a lack of means. As for sewing, the sit­u­a­tion is iden­ti­cal, with a per­cent­age of one machine every five stu­dents, not to men­tion the lack of all hard­ware tools, from fab­ric to scis­sors …
By the end of the aca­d­e­mic year, we'll have the final results. Mr Masengo ma Mbon­golo, Gen­eral Coor­di­na­tor of Malaki ma Kongo, first of all thanked the Offi­cials and trainees of Malaki Devel­oppe­ment Cen­ter for mak­ing this project suc­ceed despite of all the dif­fi­cul­ties. He also remarked that the decade 2005-2015 will be the decade of fight against poverty. But for this project to be ben­e­fi­cial to all, every­one must give a con­tri­bu­tion to the fight against poverty. There­fore every­one must "wake up", learn to work in group and in coop­er­a­tives. Dif­fi­cul­ties are the same in the South as in the North of the Coun­try. We must there­fore increase our work effi­ciency from the very basis, so that we can bet­ter present Malaki Devel­op­ment to the world.