The Ability Wear Job Creation Centre provides sewing and garment-manufacturing skills training and income-generating work opportunities to people with disabilities.
The centre custom manufactures and brands a wide range of clothing apparel for local companies, government departments and schools in and around Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Dispatch).
It includes our Sewing Centre, Screen-printing and Embroidery departments.
On-the-job skills training and knowledge transfer is ongoing in this centre. We are continually looking to identify persons with disabilities with potential to receive further sewing, printing, and embroidery training.
Once suitable persons are identified (often from our Ability Industrial Job Creation Centre), they are initially placed in a three-month training programme. Those who successfully complete the training are then placed in the centre’s various production lines.
Progress is tracked by qualified mentors who monitor performance and provide ongoing training on a daily basis. As our people’s skills improve, they are moved onto the more advanced production lines which include our top-end manufactured clothing items. There is therefore a natural motivation for our people to continuously improve and up-skill as their personal growth increases their earning potential.
Currently we have approximately 40 persons with disabilities working in our Ability Wear Job Creation Centre.
Sewing Centre:
Here we manufacture clothing and workwear for schools, companies and government departments in and around Nelson Mandela Bay. We are proud to be supplying approximately 40 schools with tracksuits, jackets, sports kits, and more. We are also manufacturing ladies spencers and baby wear for a large national retailer.
We specialize in custom matric jackets for schools. The photo to the right is of a hoodie order we recently manufactured for a local school.
Screen-printing: 
This department compliments the Sewing Centre by printing logos on the clothing and workwear we manufacture. We also print on t-shirts for companies, sports clubs and schools. Last year we printed and delivered 15 000 caps for the national Casual Day Campaign.
We are currently manufacturing and printing 15 000 golf shirts for Casual Day 2015. We will start printing the 15 000 cap order in July.
Embroidery:
Thanks to the kind support of the National Lottery, Ability Wear was able to purchase state of the art embroidery machines: 6 and 4 head machines for larger orders and a single head for smaller orders. This ensures excellent turnaround times. Pricing is subject to quantity and stitch count.
For any queries or further information please feel free to contact
Cecilia Fourie (Ability Wear Manager):
Tel: (041) 484 5426
Email:cecilia.fourie@apdnmb.org.za