Empowering Women Every Step Of The Way

“When we just started out, our tailors were only given clothing designs to sew and it wasn’t considered a fast-moving sale item that would fly of the shelves,” Yap tells Business Today.

- Poovenraj Kanagaraj

Soon, demand had started to decrease while supplies increased, Yap and her team realised something had to be done. “As it all played out, KTJ soon saw the aim and goal to continuously source and provide job opportunities to the community through delivery of handmade gift items such as corporate gifts, fashion items and tourist souvenirs,” she highlights.

By designing and creating bespoke handmade corporate gifts, KTJ was able to help home-based tailors earn a more lucrative side-income while taking care for their home and children.

Founded in mid-2018, Yap Sue Yii’s social enterprise, Komuniti Tukang Jahit (KTJ or also known as ) is a platform that builds and empowers a community of B40 women by providing upskill training and sewing job opportunities. In an interview with Business Today, Yap says that she found the business opportunity to establish the enterprise when she was solving an operational issue in her first fashion startup, Royale Demure.

An opportunity that enables home-based tailors to earn a sustainable income through sewing.

She started sourcing for tailors who would be able to work on smaller bulk orders for her designers on her platform. Word then got around and sooner then later, order had started to increase but there were not enough to go around.