Bengal News Reporters
Stitch Buffalo has
brought together a variety of women from different parts of the world to share
one common skill: stitching.
Dawne
Hoeg and Shelby Deck, co-founders of Stitch
Buffalo, have been hard at work for the past year and a half by teaching a
group of refugee women sewing, beading, and embroidering. They meet up from 9 a.m.
to noon every Thursday at the Concerned Ecumenical Ministry on 286 Lafayette
Ave.
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| From left, Karma Tamang, Tila Bastola, Dawne Hoeg and Kala Nijoula |
With the skills the
refugee women are taught, they create prayer pouches, Buffalove heart pins, and
another displayable art pieces.
Stitch
Buffalo came about after adjunct professor at SUNY Buffalo State and textile
artist, Dawn Hoeg, noticed many refugees and immigrants on the West Side. She
wanted to improve the refugee community by using her textile design background
to bring refugee women closer together.
“We
went to refugee resettlement agencies with these post cards saying we’re
starting this beading and embroidering group and to send us people who they
knew might be interested,” said Deck.
Shelby Deck, on creating Stitch Buffalo:
However, the beginning didn’t go as they
planned. No one attended their first class, there second class had three women
from the Congo, and the third class consisted of five people. From there on,
the class size began to grow.
The
Stitch Buffalo workshop, which is entirely funded by Hoeg and Deck, has an
interesting way of distributing funds to the refugee women for their work.
“Everything
we do sells for money, and out of that money 70 percent goes back to the woman
who made that piece. It doesn’t go into a pool but rather goes to the
individual women,” said Deck.
This
leaves Hoeg and Deck with 30 percent of the profits, which isn’t sufficient to
cover the expenses. “It doesn’t cover the money for rent, the floss, fabric,
beads, and other expenses,” said Deck.
However,
as Stitch Buffalo continues to grow and gain support from the West Side
communities, Deck and Hoeg hope to receive grant money from foundations.
“We
have established that there is a need for this. We have established that this
is beautiful and that people respond to it. We don’t want to see this go away.
I don’t think anyone who is being touched by this would want to see it go
away,” said Hoeg.
One
of the ways Hoeg and Deck plan on increasing business and raising awareness is
by having pop-up events at different craft shows. Recently, Stitch Buffalo had
a hands-on gallery
exhibition at Buffalo State. That was its first ever gallery showcase,
where they were able to display their work to the public and the Buffalo State
community.
“Stitch
Buffalo is such a wonderful support system for immigrant women in that it
provides a safe place to gather, opportunity to get to know other women from
the community, and utilize their amazing hand skills,” said Carol Townsend, associate
professor at Buffalo State.
Stitch
Buffalo will also be displaying and selling items for the upcoming holiday
seasons. It will be setting up table stands outside of the workshop. The stands
are fully decorated with various unique art pieces that were made by the
refugee women.
“We
make a beautiful booth. For the one we are in this weekend we have beautiful
lights hanging on the branches of trees and are selling some of the cuffs and
pouches that we make,” Hoeg said.
Most of the women who
attend the Stitch Buffalo workshop don’t speak English very well, making it
more difficult for the women to communicate with Hoeg and Deck. Nevertheless,
Hoeg and Deck have found interesting ways of communicating with them during the
workshops.
“We
have a lot of visual cards that we’ve been using to teach the women. We also use
a lot of show-and-tell and hand gestures,” Hoeg said.
Communicating
among the refugee women was one of the most challenging roadblocks for Hoeg and
Deck. However, this is one of the reasons they chose the idea of stitching,
which involves nonverbal communication.
“Communication
is kind of the key of this whole thing. You don’t have to share a language in
order to show somebody how to do something. Most of the three hours of our
class we have no idea what they’re saying, ” Deck said.
All of the women who
attend Stitch Buffalo are living on the West Side, which is known to be a
multicultural melting pot for refugees.
“I think it’s great for
people to travel all around the world and experience different cultures; I
think that’s a wonderful experience for people to have,” said Deck.
Deck, however, doesn’t
have to physically travel all around the world to experience different cultures.
The women at Stitch Buffalo provide her with that luxury.
“I don’t have to leave
the country," Deck said. "I travel all around the world every Thursday with this group of
women.”
