The Happy Tailor

School uniforms are an important symbol for Burmese migrant children in Thailand to show that they are enrolled in schools and allowed to be educated without being arrested by police irregular migrants.

In 2008, Help without Frontiers Thailand initiated the Happy Tailor project, an income generating sewing workshop for Burmese migrant women to produce free school and sport uniforms and other clothes for the students and teachers at our Rays of Hope schools while providing safe and fair working opportunities.

Over the years, the Happy Tailor turned into a self-sustainable social enterprise whose aim is to give a chance to Burmese migrants, most of them coming from refugee camps, to develop their skills in sewing to earn a good salary and to work under good, fair and legal work conditions. To create a friendly work environment, the Happy Tailor offers free training for migrants workers, students and parents from migrant schools to gain sewing skills.

The Happy Tailor’s staff receives regular trainings, uses modern equipment to stitch logos, design using different embroidery with up to 12 colours and is subject to frequent quality controls. The sewing workshop rapidly expanded its production line from school uniforms to include workwear for schools, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, industries, sport associations and Thai authorities. The Happy Tailor produces backpacks, sport clothes, jackets, pants, skirts, T-shirts, sheets, curtains and all types of clothes ordered by donors as well as boxes, shopping bags, purses, and bracelets to be sold on the Italian, Burmese and Thai markets. Since its establishment, the Happy Tailor has produced approximately 52,000 school uniforms, 10,000 school bags and over 3,000 fashion accessories. The revenues obtained from the selling of Happy Tailor products are kept in the project.

Partner organizations, such as IOM, regularly used the Happy Tailor facility to organize sewing workshops for migrant women and girls to empower them and build their capacity to generate income.