By Wally Bah
Many girls are now acquiring skills in tailoring and embracing the profession, so as to become employers and not job seekers.
Until recently, the tailoring profession was mostly dominated by the men folk as women, most often than not, were customers, but now this is taking a paradigm shift.
Ms. Mam S. Danso, lives in Jarumeh Koto village in Sami District, Central River Region North (CRR-N), and she’s into tailoring and designing of all classes of outfits.
Ms. Danso, the owner of Danso’s Tailoring and Creation, opened her new tailoring and creation business in the village on 31st May, 2018 after receiving the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) Mini Grant Scheme support.
Ms. Danso has employed two boys who are all Gambians, and she has been working with them since she established her business in her native village.
She explained: “When I came across the Mini Grant advertisement on the social media-
Facebook, I decided to apply. Today, I’m back in the village after spending four (4) years in the Greater Banjul Area.
“I’m happily doing business in the village and I don’t admire my fellows in the Greater Banjul Area simply because, I’m making good profit in my business.”
“I can proudly say that, now I am excited and my life has changed with the three (3) tailoring machines, cupboard and chairs I got from the Mini Grant support. I am able to open a new tailoring shop in my village and employ two Gambian youths,” she disclosed.
Ms. Danso is hopeful that one day, she would become one of the biggest young entrepreneurs in my region.
Ms. Amie Njie, a student and also an apprentice at a tailoring workshop in coastal road market, informed Mansa Banko Online medium that, she is learning the skills in order to be self-employed and by extension, helping her family.
“If I have my certificate from my boss, I want to open my own tailoring workshop, and then employ people to work for me,” she intimated.
To Ms. Njie, it’s all about self-esteem and determination; that “if you have these tools then you can make it’’.
She argued: “Equally, I want to sustain my family with these skills, because without a tailor in this world, then we will not have clothes to wear.”
Njie doesn’t subscribe to the notion that ‘tailoring is more of a men work than women’, but rather, she maintained that all skills are important; that it does not matter whether you are man or woman.
“I have never been sexually harassed by my boss, or any other person at my workplace, although it happens many a time, but am not a victim of such”, the female tailoring apprentice disclosed.
She continued: “I lost my father and am now living with my mum, and the rest of our siblings at home. That is why I’m learning this skill to sustain the family, and also to put a smile on mum’s face.”
Tailoring is not a heavy work which entails lots of manpower to do, but rather it needs focus and to be workaholic to get ahead.
As she indicated, when she started learning the tailoring skills as an apprentice, she has heard all kinds of words regarding the tailoring profession.
But later she later found out that all what was said to her was not true. “I have been told that many a time, some of the bosses’ demand sexual favours from their apprentices, but I have never been harassed either,” Ms. Njie vouched.
Ms. Oumou Jallow is another lady under tailoring apprenticeship at the same market. Jallow reasoned that she’s learning tailoring because she loves the tailoring skills, and she wants to run her own tailoring workshop.
“If I have a good husband who will help me, then I will open my own tailoring workshop and start employing people to work for me; because I love the profession too,” she disclosed of her desire.
Equally, she held that, it’s also good to learn skills in order to be independent and self-reliant in life.
