Talitha Clarke UK Weaver & UK Guild Board Member delivered at NGO SPES Creative Crafts & Multimedia Training Centre a free Workshop on Basic Hand Weaving using the Backstrap Loom to a small group of aspiring youngcraftswomen from Le Morne Site who benefited from thos Outdoors / Indoors Training held from 12th – 23rd August.
Lesley Blythe-Lord visiting Textile Expert trained the the SPES Mastercraftsteam on the Shibari technique using Indigo blues on cotton T-shirts, which have become our NGO’s cool uniforms. This pre-Conference training was held on 26th August.
Launching of Training Felt-Work making skills in August. Felt being historically one of the earliest types of man-made fabrics for either useful and/or decorative purposes, NGO SPES Crafts Training Centre is grateful that visiting guest Artist Lesley Blythe-Lord delivered a free course in Felt-making basic techniques. It is hoped that local Textile Factories will provide their waste wool fibres to help to develop these newly introduced eco-felt crafts entrepreneurial skills. A series of photos illustrates how a young group of Women from Le Morne Mountain site benefited and enjoyed learning to make felt designer products by recycling UK waste wool and cashmere in beautiful colours.
Monday 2nd September 2013
Visit of the Guest Textile Experts & Designers to NGO SPES QB Creative Craft & Multimedia Training Centre and meeting with the Mastercrafts Trainers of SPES.
Tuesday 3rd September 2013
Field Visit of the 5 Overseas Visiting Experts on Textile are accompanied by the Mauritian Botanist Mr. Kersley Pynnee
Lecture at Design Institute for over 130 Students & Designers
Technical Lecture for Crafts people, SMEs & Textile Industrialists held on 5th September, which was filmed in view of its environmentally-friendly value and live demos on artistic Felt Work using waste wool from textile factories.
At La Pirogue Hotel Textile Conference Participants dialoguing on the importance of MID – Maurice Ile Durable environmentally-friendly 5 Es on: Education, Environment, Energy, Employment and Equity.
Lecture at Hennessy Park Hotel for UOM Textile Students & Researchers.
Visit to LMHTF – Le Morne Heritage Trust Fund Site classified by UNESCO as International Patrimony. A Mauritian Creole Lunch for the visiting Experts of the Conferences on “Natural Fibers & Dye Applications” took place at the LMHTF office site on Saturday 7th September.
Successful multi-mixing experiments mainly mixing Indigo plants from the Regional Islands and local vegetables & fruits to obtain natural colourful dyes.
As in-house colourful Mini Fashion Show, which was recorded in video form, culminated the NGO SPES Textile Conferences & Workshops on Saturday 14th September. The Design e-book live interactive presentation by Robin Blythe-Lord was help on Monday 16th as a Post Conference activity, as for the Indigo Revival actions they will continue also during the coming year.
December website upgrade on the SPES Festive Kids Cyber Café with RAL – Robotic Aided Learning.
Two groups of 10-11 year old holidaying school children participated and sang Christmas Carols Karaoke mode and gaily carried out projected Aerobic dancing exercises, under the multi-media e-tutoring of the Japanese Robot SAYA conceived by the Tokyo University of Science Koba-Lab, and which is presently at the SPES Robotic Unit for technical exchanges on Basic Science programmes. Seeing that SAYA is a life-size Humanoid Android Robot that embodies combined Artificial, and Emotional Intelligences and has the built-in e-potential to control emotional facial expressions, that induce fascinating focused-learning suitable for All Age groups.
To encourage an early interest in science the kids focused individually on a maze game that led the way to an innovative animated Dinosaur Robot that, has built-in programmed artificial interactive intelligence: it listens & responds to human voiced instructions, enjoys being caressed & can learn progressively to walk around and utter friendly sounds.
Actually this small Dinosaur hi-tech controlled e-wonder is becoming a popular affective stimulating interactive pet companion for lonely elderly people.
All the Kids were given a Christmas Gift Pack that contained a special Dinosaurs Story Book and were told about the historical life and disappearance of the ancient giant greedy Dinosaurs and also learnt about Climate Warming Changes, beach erosion and pollution causes. These Kids were delighted with their novel souvenir, Dinosaur Pencil Case and Art Kit to take to school in the New Year to remind each one of them to always be exemplary environmentally-friendly-minded, & to respect nature & protect our Planet.
The Kids also enjoyed learning a recipe on Healthy Coconut Biscuits and had fun decorating with coloured icing sugar small Kids shaped biscuits. Most of these Kids used blue to match the new Indigo blue coloured blouse of the Robot SAYA e-tutor, that they found fascinating and they all left “e-star-eyed”.
