Acumu, “JaJa” Rose, 50, is one of the most popular women in the bead group. “Jaja” means grandmother and she is what each person would want in one…warm and affectionate, funny, and kind. Her smile melts our hearts. But her life has not been easy. The mother of seven children, only the youngest, Alfred, lives at home. He has left school for lack of fees. The other children and all of JaJa’s grandchildren live in a camp for internally displaced people up in the north.

JaJa and her husband, Secondo, can not return to the north because Secondo was a business leader and therefore a target of the rebels. He now works in the quarry every day. Rose joins him three times a week after she has rolled her beads. Before the bead project they were living on about $25 a month.

They live in a neat and tidy room that is white washed. The furniture is covered by white lace clothes, remnants of better days before the civil war began. Outside their home Rose has planted flowering shrubs. They are saving a bit of money each month towards the payment of a bride price so that their sons can find good marriages. Rose is a helper for BeadforLife, assiting us with each sale and bringing her winning smile and kind heart to all of us.