East African Women's Center - Building community for Somali and other East African Women and their Families

Sewing is a very popular activity with everyone from 8 to 80 at the Women’s Center. Originally, sewing was a strategy to entice women out of isolation. It worked! The surprise was that the

Through sewing women’s language skills began improving. In fact, several enrolled in ESL classes because now they had more confidence—as well as more incentives—to learn English.

educational outcomes of sewing classes were far more significant than we could have imagined. Women have learned to follow oral directions and hand/eye coordination has improved. Sewing classes are even improving women’s work-related skills like being on time, time management, and awareness of standards of quality.

Traditional Somali weaving. In the summer of 2005, an elder Somali woman saw yarn through one of the windows of the Women’s Center and came in to ask how much it cost. A staff member asked her what she was going to make, and to everyone’s surprise, she pulled a beautiful weaving from her bag.

Through this happy accident, the staff at the Center learned that there were elder women in the Twin Cities who still remembered how to

create the twined weavings of Somalia. The Women’s Center started providing these weavers with materials, connecting them with each other, and finding them opportunities to display their work.

Putting it all together. When sewers expressed interest in showing their work too, our Textile Cooperative—including both weavers and sewers—was created. In addition to providing women with a little supplemental income, the Cooperative’s learning possibilities are limitless: besides standards of quality and working with deadlines, women can practice their public speaking, market the Cooperative’s products in person or on line, and learn computer skills to keep records.

Working with our ESL/Transition teacher, the Women’s Center is focusing on developing a sewing curriculum that teaches higher level ESL students to follow written directions through learning to sew.

Our most recent exhibition of traditional weaving was at St. Catherine’s University.
(See St. Catherine’s exhibition)

Twice the Gift, the holiday store in downtown Minneapolis, has been a huge incentive for women to understand American culture including timelines and standards of quality.
(See Twice the Gift)