New Sderot sewing center is now up and running

 With the inspiration of Adele Rubin (a former chairperson of ESRA), and her presence on the scene, ESRA now has a new sewing center up and running in Sderot. She has invested a great many hours planning and organizing this sewing center.

My daughter Elana Cohn drove Jack and me and Victoria Habib to see how our newest venture was progressing. Together with Adele and Merle Guttmann (ESRA's founder and honorary life president), who came up especially to see our newest venture in a neighborhood of one-story homes for new immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia.

The sewing project is in the Atzmaut (Independence) Ethiopian Community Center supported by the Gvanim organization. For the last year Tali Angadia, a social worker from the Ethiopian community, has run the Center with its multifunctional activities.

A large table in the entrance hall serves as the working space for the students learning the basics of sewing. On the morning we visited there were four women learning and working on the four sewing machines the Center has. In the afternoon this large table serves as a classroom for pupils doing their homework and improving their Hebrew or Math or whatever subject they need to advance in their studies.

The Center, which makes an effort to meet the needs of the community, also has a computer classroom in the shelter, a large room for younger children to play games with a library and a conversation area. A group of women learn how to cook Israeli food in a fully equipped kitchen. Many of the women create beautiful baskets and embroidery items at home which are sold at the Center and make lovely gifts.

ESRA teaches sewing to these women so that they can ultimately support themselves with making dresses, other clothes or performing alterations. Valentina Israelov, the sewing teacher, has developed a warm relationship with her students. Noa Linden a well-known volunteer in Sderot, joined us and is very interested in assisting our efforts. We were thrilled to see our Sderot project finally blooming and working well.

More students. Women and men, can be taught around that big table and we would like to enlarge the project.

Does anyone out there have a working sewing machine to donate? We can put it to good use. Materials are also welcomed. Contact me at 09 749 5550; 054 681 0068.