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Description:
"The more you teach, the more you learn," professes Hannah while sitting behind a desk at her busy Cape Coast shop. A conversation with Hannah, owner of Hadod Fashions, is filled with enlightening pearls of wisdom gleaned from her 40 years of experience as a seamstress, a career defined by an insatiable pursuit of education for herself and for others. While living in Germany in the early 1970s, her passion for sewing was discovered as she strove to learn a trade that would both help her family and "render services to the community." Within 10 years, Hannah would open her own seamstress shop in Ghana with a small bank loan. It would be the first of many career achievements including earning second place in a national sewing competition, Wax Style GTP, in 1998, becoming one of the six founding Global Mamas, and pioneering the Progressive Women's Co-operative Credit Union along with 19 other members. Countless framed certificates acknowledging her participation in workshops such as Management Development are unhung and lean against the wall of her office. They are artifacts of her quest to master her trade, a profession she believes incorporates not only a creative, but one who understands mathematics and is fluent in English. Hannah's success as a seamstress was even recognized by a visit from Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Despite her recognition from others, Hannah confides that she is most proud of her ability to train young ones so they "remain off the street." Steadfast in her commitment to empower other women through the principles of fair trade, Hannah's dream is to open a school dedicated to helping underprivileged women become financially independent by learning how to sew high-quality goods.
Result:
Working with Global Mamas, Hannah has: - Increased revenue by 15% from sewing Global Mamas shirts.
- Employed nine full-time workers.
- Improved her accuracy in daily record keeping, which enables her better to manage her shop.
- Learned basic computer skills and is working on integrating IT into her daily operations for better financial management.
- Increased revenue from merchandise sales in her retail shop.
- Received a new electric sewing machine.
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