World Refugee Day

Written by Elisha, Nisa's founder

After finding out about a month ago that World Refugee Day was looming, I decided to organise two crazy things within a short amount of time:  a pop-up shop and a big event to celebrate the day. And they both turned out better than I could ever have dreamed of, thanks in large part to the awesome press coverage we received.

That press coverage….

We were contacted by The Project to film a short segment about Nisa around World Refugee Day.  The journalist who was involved was currently a volunteer helping to resettle newly arrived refugees in Auckland, so I knew she’d do a great job. She even flew down to Wellington herself to conduct the interviews!

I asked the Nisa sewing team if they’d be comfortable being interviewed, and saying they were nervous is an understatement.  Speaking on national television in a second language is no easy task, but they did a great job. The filming ended up taking half a day, but it was definitely worth it as we received such an amazing response from people all over New Zealand.

The pop-up shop

We’re pleased to announce that the pop-up was a run-away success! We almost sold out of stock by day 3, so we had an extra production day to sew some more garments.  We can say that our underwear is the freshest around, going straight from the sewing machine to customer’s hands within the day! It was lovely meeting so many people that have supported us from the beginning - these kinds of interactions give us the strength to keep on going!

We’re waiting on our next fabric shipment at the moment, and when we get that shortly we will ramp up production again so we can start fulfilling our pre-orders.

The World Refugee Day event

The night of World Refugee Day took the Nisa team to the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, where we celebrated with delicious catering from Pomegranate Kitchen and a wine or two.  I gave a wee speech, and you can read more about it here.  The photos are here.

In summary

We’ve been re-energised by the support and aroha we have received over World Refugee Day.  I was having a bit of a crisis of faith, wondering if this whole venture could really work. Now I can relax a bit, knowing that, with the support of people from all over NZ, it can and it will.