Stitches of Hope

April 2024

By Kelly Mehee Shin

Refugee and migrant women learning sewing and garment-making skills together at Koinonia Education Center in Athens.

Sewing Hope: Empowering Refugee Women Through Modern Hanbok

In April 2024, Koinonia Education Center began a sewing program to help refugee women learn practical skills that could one day provide opportunities to earn an income.

The program was led by Kelly Mehee Shin and was open primarily to refugee women attending the church, as well as other women who were interested in learning how to sew.

The vision was not simply to teach sewing, but to help women develop a practical skill through which they could grow in confidence and move toward greater independence.

To begin learning the techniques needed to make modern Hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing reimagined in a contemporary style, the women first practiced Jogakbo, the Korean art of joining small pieces of fabric together.

Jogakbo practice pieces created as students learned the foundations of fabric design and sewing for modern Hanbok.

Working with different fabrics, colors, and shapes helped them learn basic sewing techniques while developing patience, creativity, and attention to detail.

Around the table, women from different backgrounds learned side by side. What began with pieces of fabric gradually became a place of learning, friendship, and encouragement.

Each piece of cloth was small, but when joined together, the pieces became something new and beautiful. In many ways, the Jogakbo reflected the vision of Koinonia itself—people from different backgrounds being brought together to learn, grow, and build a new future in community.

Through this program, we hoped that sewing would become more than a hobby. Our prayer was that these women could develop skills that might eventually help them create products, earn income, and take meaningful steps toward self-reliance.