School Uniforms and Learning How to Sew by Delsyia

School Uniforms and Learning How to Sew by Delsyia - May 2019 Scholarship Essay

If I was given a $10,000 grant, I would use it to help the public schools in Belize to supply uniforms for the students.

I was born and raised in Belize City, Belize until age 12. I now live in Arlington, Texas, but I still consider Belize my hometown. With the help of an aunt that lived in the United States, my entire family obtained green cards and eventually moved to the United States. My parents made this enormous decision to move to a new country with five children and the sole purpose of giving us the opportunity for a better life.

In 2017, the unemployment rate in Belize was 9%. The unemployment rate in Belize averaged 11.56% from 1993 until 2017, reaching an all-time high of 23.3% in 2010. The unemployment rate in the United States is currently 3.8%. Needless to say, jobs and earning a decent living can be difficult in Belize.

I recall, when I was a student there and growing up, my parents struggled to get the finances to buy uniforms for my siblings and myself throughout the school year. There was approximately a five-year age gap between myself and each of my siblings. With the difference in age, we all attended a different school and had a different color and style uniform to wear. My oldest sister attended college and wore a uniform for her college. I attended middle school and wore a uniform for my school. My younger sisters went to elementary school and they too had to wear separate uniforms for their school. Buying uniforms for the various schools we attended was expensive, but it was cheaper for my parents to buy uniforms instead of everyday clothes to wear to school each day.

Wearing a uniform to school each day gave me a feeling of belonging. I belonged to that school! Everyone knew it because of the color and style of the uniform I wore every day.

One of my last classes I took in Belize was a sewing class. I enjoyed taking this class because it taught me how to actually create something that I or someone else could use. We were taught to mend our uniform as well as to create other small items of clothing. Making a handkerchief or a pillowcase with a floral design and adding various colors to them was such an accomplishment!

I would use the $10,000 towards teaching the students in the sewing class how to sew an article of clothing that they can wear or that their family could use in their home.

By teaching the students the skill of learning how to sew would give them a sense of independence and pride. It would give them the confidence that they could actually create something from scratch. They would learn how to cut a piece of cloth into a design that they would then create into something usable. By teaching the students how to sew a uniform item, such as a blouse or skirt, they would be able to wear that item to school with pride. By teaching them to sew and create an article of clothing, it would help their parents financially by not having to spend money on an entire uniform outfit.

A $10,000 grant to teach students how to mend their clothes or sew an article of clothing can eventually become a career path for someone that enjoys doing it. If it does nothing more than teaching someone how to sew a button on their shirt later in life, it will be an accomplishment. The immediate benefit would be to help parents with the added expense of paying for school uniforms.