MRHS Students Sew Skirts for Women in Swaziland

The Food, Fashion and Family class at is making skirts for women in Swaziland one stitch at a time. 

Carol Hoernle's twenty students are tasked with making peasant style skirts for the Swaziland Relief, an organization whose mission is to provide short and long term relief to AIDS orphans and victims of AIDS in Swaziland through community development.

According to Marcela Tomasetta, of Swaziland Relief, women and children are some of the most affected and are in need of basic resourses like clothing.

Hoernle explained to her students that because of cultural differences in Swaziland, women cannot wear shorts or pants like an American woman might. Instead, they wear long skirts which can be hard to aquire through donations. And this is where the students come in. 

"They have a huge need for the skirts in Swaziland," Hoernle told her students on the first day of their community service project.

The tools and resources needed for the project are being provided to the high school, Hoernle said, and the skirts will be delivered in women in Swaziland in June.

In order to sew the skirts, students will have to lay the patterns, stitch the fabric together and thread the elastic wasteband. Each skirt will also go through a quality check, Hoernle said.

Many of the students had never used a sewing machine before that day, and Hoernle had them experience the control, feel and set up of a machine by stitching lined paper.

"This project is great because it combines community service with fashion," Hoernle said.

Hoernle expects that the skirts will be completed by the end of April.