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Social Enterprise Hiring Refugees And Migrants Sees More Demand For Face Masks
When wearing face masks became mandatory in Greater Sydney at the start of this month, The Social Outfit immediately received hundreds of orders for its handmade masks.
Based in Newtown in Sydney’s inner west, the ethical fashion brand and social enterprise trains and recruits women from refugee and migrant backgrounds in clothing design, production and retail. Over the past year, these women have learned to sew the popular face masks, and they’re getting busy again amid Sydney’s newer coronavirus outbreaks.
“I’m seeing these orders coming in and I’m like, ‘OK, do I now need to bring in more sewers?’” Camilla Schippa, CEO of The Social Outfit, told HuffPost Australia.
The Social Outfit store is located on bustling King Street in Newtown, and above the shop is a workshop where five women work as sewers.
The organisation provides free sewing classes to women from refugee and migrant backgrounds, with the potential for them to be employed if an opening arises. Many of these women, who often have poor English skills and struggle to find employment in Australia, are referred to The Social Outfit from refugee and asylum seeker settlement agencies, migrant resource centres, women’s shelters and domestic violence crisis centres.
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When New South Wales experienced higher COVID-19 case numbers in July and August last year, Schippa hired four refugees to focus on only making masks to meet the high demand.
“We taught them how to sew and how to make masks,” said Schippa. “They already had to have had some level of skill, but in most cases, they’ve never used an industrial machine,...
