Coleen Wauchope
Coleen Wauchope was born and has lived in Bristol most of her life. She has been involved with Silai since 2001. Coleen is an active member of her community, and is involved in youth and community projects in St Pauls.
"I do remember when I first came into the class, to do the curtains and the tutor announced to me that the curtains are made by hand... you know, hand sewn curtains! Machines are used to put on the header tape, but everything else is sewn by hand. So that took a little while to adjust and come to terms with... right, I'm going to have to be patient with this, because I want it and I want to be able to make my own curtains. But I stayed put, I did all three years of the course and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Another unique thing about Silai is the age group, from 19 to 99 and it's really nice because normally, if you go into mainstream colleges to do a course what you do find, as a woman is more of the time you're the oldest person there, and its all teenagers...totally different here, what you will find is mature women, senior citizens which are grandmothers, and those people who have come with other skills and they've come with history. That is why you are constantly learning new things and new ways of life."
