Blog by Nisha Dobberstein, Kala Subramaniam, Suganthini Masilamoney and Dr Theresa Devasahayam.

It has been agreed upon by development planners that “unemployment and underemployment lie at the core of poverty”, and especially amongst the poor, labour is the “only asset [the poor] can [leverage] to improve their well-being”.^[1] Central to Agenda 2030 is the goal of lifting people out of poverty. It is an established fact that a crucial way of achieving this goal is through skills training and employment. There is rich evidence that women’s lives improve when they work. The benefits they reap from waged work are boundless: having a job increases their financial prowess; they become more informed individuals and their children stand to be better off. In a nutshell, ensuring that women have access to decent work is key to their empowerment, having far-reaching gains for women across different arenas.

Worldwide women’s employment rate is 50 percent compared to 77 percent for men.^[2] The quality of jobs for women has been vastly different from men’s with women dominating the less prestigious, low paid work. But the tables are turned when the work women undertake is valued appropriately.

The birth of the Mentari Sewing Studio exemplifies this very point. Established in July 2020, the Studio is a joint collaboration across three entities: Soroptimist international Damansara (SID), Persatuan Kebajikan Kasih (PKK), and Sister Stella Michael of Desa Mentari. It was in the months prior to that which saw COVID-19 hit Malaysia and businesses were folding up, leaving many to lose their jobs as the Movement Control Order (MCO) came into effect and the entire country plunged into lockdown. The setting up of the Studio was a blessing to a small group of local women from Desa Mentari who were struggling to make ends meet and it was through the Studio that these women received sewing skills.

An urban poor area on the fringe of Kuala Lumpur, Desa Mentari has a population of 35,000 residents, residing in thirteen blocks of eighteen floors totalling 6,290 units. The majority of the Desa Mentari residents are unemployed or are struggling with low levels of income. For this community, the COVID-19 pandemic was devastating since they fell into the lowest income quintile, and as a result these families slipped further into poverty. In fact, the project was set up at a time when the men had lost their regular sources of income and there were no jobs to enable them to sustain themselves and their families.

But the community was not unknown to SID members. Since 2010, SID has been supporting Sister Stella Michael who had set up a learning centre in the community to provide education assistance to a group of students living in the area, and thus the needs of the community have been known to the club for some time. It was also the SID club that acted as coordinator and sourced for seamstresses from the mothers of the students from the learning centre to join the Sewing Studio. 

Although the women started off working from their homes as the COVID-19 situation evolved in March 2020, these women sprung into action as soon as orders for PPEs for frontliners in hospitals flowed in through the non-governmental organization (NGO), Biji-Biji. This in turn gave birth to the idea of setting up a sewing studio for the marginalised community of lower-income women in Desa Mentari. In 2020, these women produced 3,954 PPE gowns with SID coordinating the effort. After the PPE project had completed, these women turned to sewing face masks because of requests that had come in through the networks of SID members, and other NGOs such as Mangosteen, Conscious Ventures and Mr DIY. Over nine months, 16,365 face masks were produced.

It was also at this time that the Mentari Sewing Studio was established, having successfully procured a sewing centre within walking distance from the apartment blocks in Desa Mentari with the help of the NGO, Persatuan Kebajikan Kasih (PKK). On 22 July 2020, SID signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with PPK for the free use of their sewing centre.

Currently, there are 5 women and 1 man who are part of the Mentari Sewing Studio team. Because the majority of women from the Desa Mentari community have low levels of education or have dropped out of school, many of them having been denied access to jobs with higher remuneration and benefits; the Studio is a small step forward in the larger effort to empower them. But for these single mothers and women involved in the project, their work in the Studio has led to significant changes in their lives: each woman has earned an average of RM 900-1100 per month, and the income has enabled them to feed their families and weather the storm during the pandemic. Moreover, these women now yield greater control in their families as they are now the breadwinners while their husbands assist with the housework and the children.

Moving forward, SID has emplaced measures to ensure that the Studio has a strong sustainable element since a small portion of the funds from the ongoing sales has been set aside to develop the project into a standalone social enterprise venture. Under this venture, the women will be engaged to produce new craft items and/ or provide alteration services that could be commercially viable, enabling these women to embrace entrepreneurship, details of which were captured in Malaysia’s national newspapers, the New Straits Times. In conjunction with this effort, SID members have tried to ensure a minimum sum of RM900 was earned by the women working in the Studio; as well as have helped plan and structure the sewing studio and monitor and disburse payments. Moreover, there are plans to turn the Studio into a training centre for girls and other women in Desa Mentari who desire to learn how to sew and venture into new craft design projects. To help build the project, JP Morgan Chase Foundation has stepped in to sponsor commercial sewing machines and sewing accessories. To expand on the project, SID is working on crystallising partnerships with various NGOs like Conscious Ventures, Asli & Co. Biji-Biji and Mr DIY in procuring orders on a regular basis so that the women working at the Studio might receive a sustained income.

At the Soroptimist International of the South West Pacific federation level, the Mentari Sewing Studio project won the Best Practice Award in 2021. While there is enough evidence to show that “empowering women economically [and equipping them with the appropriate skills training are] not only the ‘right thing’ to do to honour the world’s commitments to human rights. [But] is also the ‘smart thing’ to do for development, economic growth and business,”^[3] in fulfilling both Targets 1 and Target 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Mentari Sewing Studio project has been a critical initiative fulfilling women’s full and effective participation in economic life. Although arising out of a desperate situation, the skills work the Studio has afforded these women has been integral to giving them an opportunity to build their self-worth not only in their families, but more importantly to reflect on their role in the community level as they have become significant contributors to society at large during a time of crisis.”