Blessed Gérard's
Community Development Centre

Mandeni, kwaZulu/Natal, Republic of South Africa

We have trained many people who are now able to and some of them are actually running their own sewing clubs and teach others the skills they have learnt from us.
Thus the project has reached its goal to help people to help themselves.
We do not want to go into competition with our own graduates.
Therefore we have suspended our own sewing school.
This page remains online as a historical reference.

Our sewing teacher Mrs. Simphiwe Sybil Mkhize passed away on 6 June 2006 after a severe sickness.
May she rest in peace!

The objective of Blessed Gérard's Community Development Centre is the training for unemployed persons with the purpose of enabling them to obtain employment.

Our first step towards this is a sewing school.

We employed a qualified sewing teacher, to give dressmaking courses.

It should give skills to the needy to obtain employment in the textile industry and to encourage self-employment and thus to make them independent of charity.

Reports on Blessed Gérard's Community Development Centre in:

A piece of Africa no tourist ever sees (by Diane von Wrede)
A piece of South Africa no tourist ever sees (text of a video film)
Our newsletters:
- Nr. 1 (May 1993)
- Nr. 4 (December 1994)
- Nr. 9 (August 1996)
- Nr. 11 (Christmas 1996)
- Nr. 14 (Easter 1998)
- Blessed Gérard's Community Development Centre - News December 1999
- Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard - Blessing and Opening of new wing of Blessed Gérard's Care Centre and Hospice in Mandeni
Why we run a sewing school
What we teach here
Sewing Success

This page was last updated on Friday, 21 August 2026 22:47:21

The old slogan "give a fish to a poor man, then he has enough for a day - teach him fishing, then he will always have enough" is still true and expresses best what we are trying to achieve in our community development centre.

Starting as inexperienced beginners the participants after a while are able to sew beautiful garments of high quality.

A project of

Blessed Gérard's Care Centre
established by the
Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard

How YOU can help us to help
Contact details

Back to the homepage of the Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard

Historische Archivseite: Inhalt und zeitgenössische Aussagen wurden bewahrt; lediglich Gestaltung und Bildanordnung wurden für lagleder.net modernisiert.