Yeşim Keser, the persevering life story of a seamstress who loves her profession is a source of inspiration…

Yeşim Keser has been working as a tailor since the 6th grade of middle school. In 6th grade, she started tailoring after her neighbors who were tailors told her family. At a young age, she just wanted to learn this job without demanding money and took up the profession.

He studied high school and university education on this profession and completed his school successfully because he loved the profession very much. After graduating from university, she started working in a supermarket with the desire to have a salaried job and earn a regular income, and rose to the position of manager. After 7 years in this sector, she had to quit her job when she got married and had children. Yeşim Keser was not used to sitting at home and not working, so she wanted to do something to earn income. Initially, she started selling socks at home. Then a teacher told her, “Why don’t you sew, go ahead!” and she started working with a sewing machine left over from her dowry.

Before the earthquake, Yeşim reserved a room in her house for her tailoring business. She started to make small alterations at home without charging anyone, and then, thinking that she needed to support her husband, she started to make fabric alterations for a fee. Yeşim could not continue her work comfortably because she could not trust her machine before the earthquake, but she was earning a little pocket money. When her house collapsed with the earthquake, she lost all her materials:

”We lost everything in the earthquake and we didn’t get any support from anywhere, so even a needle you all brought is very precious to me.”

Yeşim went out of the city for a while after the earthquake. At first, she thought she would never be able to work again, but then she took the sewing machine and sewed for her family outside the city and continued to do renovation work for free. When she returned to Hatay, she could not accept customers because she did not trust her machine. She had 1-2 specific customers and she was doing their renovation works.

When she heard about the project application, Yeşim was very excited and decided to write about her experiences in her letter. She did not apply anywhere, she only applied to our project because she was profession-oriented and she believed very much that she would be included. She excitedly told the people around her about this situation. Even if those around her did not believe her, Yeşim waited excitedly for news from MaviKalem with endless faith:

“Your support is very precious to me. It is very special that it is especially for the development of women. I would have thought this way even if I had not received support. As valuable as it is for me, I am sure it is for every woman.”

Yeşim’s current dream is to open a workplace and formalize her business!

Yeşim asked for and received an overlock machine, cutting table and full-length mirror from MaviKalem as support. Yeşim Keser now works as a tailor at home. She now gets paid almost as much as a tailor for renovations for which she was never paid before, and with the money she earns, she supports her husband, provides pocket money for her children and aims to buy a sewing machine. 

“My dream is to open a workplace and cut the red ribbon of my workplace with you”, she says, explaining her plans for the future.