Near Luxor we had a unique opportunity to visit a special school to train women in embroidery techniques of various kinds. The school was established a few years ago by a Turkish woman married to an Egyptian man, who decided to act boldly to help women who, in this Arab Islamic society, have no ability to earn any cash income...they are essentially restricted to working in their homes. She encourages them to learn various skills and trains them in several forms of embroidery, from stringing beads (quite simple) to complex design embroidery. They then mostly work from their homes, bringing their completed products back to the school which sells them both locally and online.They are paid based on the amount and quality of the goods that they produce. Some choose to spend many hours each day "hanging out" at the school.
The school is fully certified as a "fair trade" establishment.
The school's founder and her husband. He does all the outside" work, buying supplies and structuring sales efforts (he stays pretty much out of the way within the school, with so many shy participants).
It was hard to get a good photo of the shy women, but having the founder's daughter dance on the table helped a lot. Don't miss the one in a full burkha in the back. The man at right was our van driver.
This woman has learned in the past several months to create some incredibly beautiful designs, few of which have yet been turned into products (or we would surely have bought one to bring home).
Here is a closeup of some of her designs.
Janet admiring the lead designer's work.
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