Sewing a Path to Education

Lotus Retal, is an informal school in Abu Dhabi providing basic literacy and numeracy skills for children of guest communities from Syria, Chad, Yemen and Palestine under the protection of the UNHCR.

The core mission of Lotus Retal is to ensure that families in Abu Dhabi, who have fled conflict zones worldwide, are not deprived of access to education due to financial constraints.

In 2021, Skills 3 collaborated with UNHCR, Lotus Retal, and Accenture to provide sewing training to the mothers, enabling them to create marketable products. This program addressed the challenge of insufficient funds necessary to keep their children in mainstream education and focused on enhancing the mothers’ confidence and capacity to generate a revenue stream.

Central to our program’s design is a revenue model that allows trainees to receive financial returns both during and after the program. We purchase the items they create, subjecting them to rigorous quality controls, and sell them on their behalf. Through the sale of these products, we tell their stories and put a human face to the tragedies that are wrought by displacement of population due to conflict.

The women continue to sew the products for sale under their own label ‘Basmat Amal’ or “stamp of hope”. Continuing in building confidence, thriving in growth!