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| Sewing Machine for Disabled Tailor & Self-Advocate |
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| Project Director |
| Tamba Traore |
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Project Number |
Total Cost (US$) |
Location |
CA02-09 |
$0 (no cost to African Sky donors) |
Markala, Mali |
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Project Details
In 2009, students from Emory University's chapter of Nourish International raised funds to help launch
African Sky's new micro-enterprise that is producing medical scrubs in Mali using Malian textiles. The
Emory students travelled to Mali to help start the scrubs program, and they purchased treadle-operated
sewing machines in Georgia using grant money from the Pat Tillman Foundation through President
Clinton's Global Initiative program. While most of the sewing machines and materials were placed in
Bamako for the African Sky Scrubs tailors, the Emory students deposited one machine in Markala, Mali to
test the idea employing tailors with physical disabilities.
African Sky works directly with Jigiya-Markala, a self-advocacy group for Malians in Markala living with
physical or developmental disabilities. Several Jigiya members are tailors, so the Emory students left one
of the African Sky Scrubs sewing machines with Jigiya so its members could practice sewing scrubs.
Now the machine remains in Markala, and the Jigiya tailors are using the machine to make a living
through clothes repairs and tailoring new clothes. In addition, the Jigiya tailors are training to become
part of the African Sky Scrubs Tailoring Cooperative.
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