Flanders today
MAY 21, 2014 current affairs
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politics
Countdown to Burial at sea More and 25 May Our run-down of all the Flemish parties and what they stand to gain – or lose – this Sunday 4
more Flemings are scattering their loved ones’ ashes in a ceremony on the North Sea 11
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Come up trumps How playing cards educated soldiers during the First World War in Turnhout exhibition 14 © Courtesy Doek
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Textile empowerment Antwerp costume workshop brings low-skilled workers and performing arts world closer Toon Lambrechts
Lack of experience can often prove a stumbling block for job applicants, especially for low-skilled workers. Antwerpbased textile workshop Doek is offering job-seekers the opportunity to gain work experience, one costume at a time.
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t’s lunchtime at the Doek workshop in the Borgerhout district of Antwerp. Everything is quiet. Unfinished purple dresses that will be used in a Danish TV show are spread out across the sewing machines. One of the scenes takes place in a sewing workshop and shows a number of seamstresses stitching. The director needed unfinished dresses and called on Doek. The pictures on the walls showcase other Doek realisations
such as zebra motif men’s suits, giant puppets with turbans and special outfits to make actors look overweight. Lies Van Assche, the brains behind the two-year-old employment project, explains that Doek’s goal is to make clothes, or more precisely, “textile objects” for the cultural sector. Doek’s workshop is housed in the building of the parttime vocational school Het Keerpunt and closely collaborates with the institute. “We offer them the opportunity to gain work experience,” Van Assche says. The idea is that students move on to regular jobs with a valuable work experience on their CV after completing the programme at Doek. Mohammed Arbab Jafer joins us. The young Afghan is studying
clothes making at Het Keerpunt and is also participating in the Doek programme. Right now, he’s working on the dresses for the TV show. “But I learned a lot of things here, like straight and overflow stitching,” he points out. Textiles isn’t entirely new to Jafer. In Afghanistan, his father was a tailor, and Jafer would often help him as a kid. “So I had some experience already. That’s why I opted for textile training,” he explains. “I can even make traditional Afghan clothes, if someone else cuts the patterns at least, because it’s very difficult.” In the 18 months he has been at Doek, Jafer has worked on many of the non-profit’s assignments. “Everything you see in the pictures, I helped make,” he says, adding that the `` continued on page 5