BeadforLife has been working with Vermillion Design + Interactive of Boulder, Colorado to re-vision our branding and create a new look that embodies the heart and spirit of BeadforLife and the work we do. We love the end result and think you will too.
As always we would love to hear from the many voices of the BeadCircle. Please take a few moments to check out our new logo and then share what the new BeadforLife logo means to you. What do you see when you gaze at the logo? Does it invoke certain emotions?
We are looking for creative, beautiful, heartfelt, whacky, and original interpretations. Have fun!
We’ll choose four winners and each will receive a $50 BeadforLife gift certificate that can be used online in our web store or at our Boulder store.
In addition we will publish the winning submissions in the next edition of The Bead newsletter.
Please send us your thoughts, in 50 words or less, by February 22nd. Send to: Patty@beadforlife.org
Tags: Africa, Bead Circle, BeadCircle, BeadforLife, Empowering Women, paper jewelry, poverty, Poverty Education, Uganda, Women Making A Difference
Check out this great video created by Nam Kiwanuka a great friend of BeadforLife.
Tags: Africa, BeadforLife, Empowering Women, Friendship Village, Housing, poverty, Poverty Eradication, Uganda, Women Making A Difference
Giggles and laughter can be heard in the BeadforLife compound along with the sounds of women repeating phrases in English. A class of 20 women is sitting outside under a tent canopy with their teacher Irene. They are excited because they are doing something very important; they are learning English with the hope of bettering their lives.
A few months ago, BeadforLife began teaching literacy classes for both English and Luganda, which is the primary tribal language around the capital city of Kampala. The classes are free, but participants have to pay transportation costs to attend. Undeterred by the cost, about 50 women are now coming faithfully to learn to read and write. For some, this is the first time they have ever learned to read any words or to sign their names! Imagine that you are 40-something and, for the first time, are able to write your name. Imagine the fun of reading signs on the road or even the newspaper. Women can read their bank statements and sign for money they withdraw. Literacy is a life changing skill; it is a step towards independence and personal control.
The literacy class also teaches simple numeracy, understanding numbers. Basic math skills will allow the women to keep books for their new businesses, calculate expenses, and understand money and change. They will be better businesswomen. Our members are keen on beating poverty back and are willing to do whatever will advance their chances. We are proud of our literacy students.
Basic Facts about Literacy
- Literacy is the ability to read, write, compute, and use technology at a level that enables an individual to reach his or her full potential as a parent, employee, and community member.
- There are 774 million adults around the world who are illiterate in their native languages.
- Two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women.
- In the U.S., 30 million people over age 16 - 14 percent of the country’s adult population - don’t read well enough to understand a newspaper story written at the eighth grade level or fill out a job application.
- The United States ranks fifth on adult literacy skills when compared to other industrialized nations.
- Adult low literacy can be connected to almost every socio-economic issue in the United States:
- More than 60 percent of all state and federal corrections inmates can barely read and write.
- Low health literacy costs between $106 billion and $238 billion each year in the U.S. - 7 to 17 percent of all annual personal health care spending.
- Low literacy’s effects cost the U.S. $225 billion or more each year in non-productivity in the workforce, crime, and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment.
- Globally, illiteracy can be linked to:
- Gender abuse, including female infanticide and female circumcision
- Extreme poverty (earning less than $1/day)
- High infant mortality and the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria, and other preventable infectious disease
To learn more about Adult Literacy and how you can get involved check out the following websites: ProLiteracy and World Education
Tags: Africa, Education, Empowering Women, literacy, Uganda
Constance and her new home in Friendship Village
You have overcome! “Banange kino siki kiriza!” “My dears I can not believe this!” exclaims Constance Nakaliri who has been waiting to get a house for the past one year, really her entire life.
Constance is a beader with the Kakwanzi group. She graduated last June before she could build a house because she was too sick and did not have enough savings to put in a down payment. With the help of her businesses of operating a telephone booth and selling used cloths she managed to save money to make a down payment and she now owns a house in Friendship Village!
Constance can not hold tears of joy as she meets her new neighbors Fatuma and Sabina who are also former beaders with her in Kakwanzi group. Her neighbors are happy for their sister Constance who has joined them in Friendship Village and say to her “Owangudde.” (You have overcome). They help her clean her house by bringing clean water, brushes, and flowers and start telling her the secrets of how to get comfortable in Friendship Village.
Constance had been living in a single room with her three children in the slums of Bwaise Kazo a suburb built in a swamp with poor sanitary and drainage systems. She moves into a well planned village and clean environment, in a three roomed house, a latrine and bathroom to herself and family. And the corn is already growing.
Congratulations Constance!
Tags: Africa, Beaders, celebrate, Empowering Women, Housing, Poverty Eradication, sustainability, Uganda, Women Making A Difference
BeadforLife Volunteer Coordinator, Korri Roach, met with Andrew and asked him the following questions:
Where are you from?
Andrew Gansky
What are some of your hobbies, likes, dislikes, interests, passions, etc.?
I am an amateur photographer, I like to backpack, I like to attempt to fix the myriad mechanical problems my bike develops, and I enjoy exploring the limits of passive-aggressive behavior in social settings.
How long have you been a volunteer with BeadforLife?
I have volunteered at BeadForLife since spring of 2008.
How has being a volunteer at BeadforLife changed your life?
The friends I have made at BeadForLife, both among the staff and other volunteers, have provided a phenomenal support group for all the pressures of collegiate life. Coming to Fulfillment on a Friday afternoon after a stressful and busy week is a great way to decompress, and at the same time experience the joys and benefits of service with a passionate and committed organization. Before volunteering at BeadForLife, I had little personal connection to conditions of extreme poverty in non-industrial countries, and little sense of what I could do to help change the situation. I have been inspired to see the phenomenal success of the organization in Uganda, which has imparted me with a greater sense of how I can help enact social change in a variety of contexts.
What brings you the most joy in your life?
I experience the most joy in my life when I can give myself without reservations to the people in my relationships and friendships, and the most wonder when we experience connection based upon the pure enjoyment of each other’s company, and the sensation that our lives are mysteriously yet profoundly more complete.
If you could meet any one person, who would it be and why?
The person I would most like to meet is Robert Pirsig, because his persistent sense of joy and amazement in a society I often find alienating and upsetting has provided me with an understanding of existence that has made my experience of life more comprehensible and wondrous.
Tags: Bead Circle, BeadforLife, Boulder, Uganda, Volunteer
by Torkin Wakefield
“My jajja (grandmother) raised me and my brothers and sisters. And also some cousins and neighborhood orphans. She said that although she could not send us all to school but for a few years she was glad that she had enough money for soap to be clean and paraffin to light the lantern.” Olivia, a BeadforLife beader, is relating the story of her life. Her eyes cloud with tears when she says “My jajja became paralyzed 8 years ago and now she just sits on the floor and can not leave her hut. She crawls on the floor pulling herself.”
Mercy Ajok before the surgery.
This jajja, Rebecca Mukisa, by her own reckoning has raised over 40 children. “Sometimes I did not think I could do it, but then I just kept going and somehow we all ate.” Like so many grandmothers in Africa Rebecca has raised her grandchildren and neighbor’s orphans after 5 of her own children had died of AIDS. These elderly women are heroines, holding together the fragile lives of children who have been orphaned. The thought of this 87 year old hero unable to move moved us to action.
BeadforLife has a small amount of money we call our “Compassion Fund.” Sometimes individual donors give something specific to it and sometimes it is used when we discover a heartbreaking situation that we want to do something about.
Mercy with a beautiful smile after her surgery!
About a year ago Sharon Perun of Woodbury, CT sponsored a little girl, Mercy Ajok, to fix her cleft palate. This life changing operation has put a smile on little Mercy’s face and BeadforLife sent Sharon this photo of Mercy as a way to thank her. Sharon’s husband, Jack, wanted to participate and signed BeadforLife up with his company, General Electric, to be part of the employee matching grant program. This meant that another child had her cleft palate repaired. Then Sharon’s mother, Judith Grim of Bethlehem, CT seeing Mercy’s photo asked if she could help someone through the Compassion Fund. Judith sponsored a wheelchair for Rebecca and the world got brighter for both of them.
Rebecca with her new wheelchair.
bush”. They found Rebecca patiently sitting on the floor, her swollen legs awkwardly folded under her. Olivia burst through the doorway “Jajja! Jajja! We’ve brought you a wheel chair!” Rebecca started to cry and then burst into a hymn of thanksgiving. The family crowded around helping Rebecca into the chair and over to the window, where for the first time in years, she could look outside. The “Weybali nyos nyos” (thank you thank you) echoed in the simple home for about an hour. The newborn baby was promptly named “Sharon” to honor Judith and Sharon. Tears and laughter flowed in equal amounts. “I can go to church on Christmas!” exclaimed a beaming Rebecca clapping her weathered hands together.
Then Rebecca sent children scurrying off in many directions bringing us a fat pumpkin, aromatic roasted groundnuts, a bunch of bananas, a papaya, and steaming corn. Everything they had to give they gave to Phoebe and Torkin. This mirrors the generosity of spirit that surrounds Rebecca and her life work.
Phoebe standing, Rebecca, baby Sharon and Oliva to left of Jajja Rebecca
It gives us great delight to know that, thanks to Judith, who lives a world away, Rebecca will spend her final years able to move about. And the thought of her going to church on Christmas for the first time in 8 years, is just about the best Christmas present Judith could imagine. And Sharon, who could not have children, is beaming to know a little girl a world away was named for her.
These are miracles of the circle of love and generosity that is BeadforLife.
Happy Holidays from all of us at BeadforLife!
Tags: Africa, Bead Circle, BeadforLife, donating, Empowering Women, Uganda, Women Making A Difference
I just came across a fascinating article in Foreign Policy magazine that claims television is one of the strongest tools for societal change out there today. It claims that when people start viewing television shows, their ideas about the role of women, family size, response to international events, and traditional cultural norms begin to change.
Who knew?
Photo by Olivier EPRON
In fact, the article states that in many impoverished countries, more households have televisions (battery-powered) than electricity. This is certainly true among the members of BeadforLife. I have seen more than one household with a small black-and-white TV, covered with a cloth, in a place of prominence in the living room.
I curb my suspicions that the money would have been better spent on children’s education by acknowledging that a family knows their needs far better than I do. And now here is research showing that a TV may actually be a tool for social change!
Shows that are popular around the world include soap operas and American Idol-type programs from each country. Shows often portray women working outside the home, running businesses, controlling money, and choosing to have small families. One study has found that giving a village access to cable TV can have the same effect on fertility rates as increasing by five years the length of time girls stay in school!
Uganda has one of the highest birth rates in the entire world, and growing population pressures impact the availability of arable land, firewood, water, and urban migration. Perhaps a TV in every hut should be our next initiative?
BeadforLife was very excited to host 18 Community Partners from across the United States and Canada in our Boulder office this past September for the bi-annual CP Gathering.
Community Partners are volunteers in various communities throughout North America who serve as ambassadors for BeadforLife. Their work is to expand our reach, sell our beads and inspire others to take action in helping us to eradicate poverty. The purpose of the CP Gathering is to allow all of our Community Partners to come together to spend time getting to know one another, to share ideas and to learn from one another, and to receive instruction from staff members. This gathering was special because it was the first time many of our Community Partners were able to visit our office here in Boulder.
Over the course of the two day gathering, Community Partners were able to spend a morning in our Boulder office receiving instruction from staff members, fulfilling orders and counting beads in our fulfillment department. They also attended other sessions focused on sharing the BeadforLife story, how to educate others about extreme poverty, as well as sharing their best tips and practices with one another. In all, the gathering was a success and both the staff members and Community Partners were enriched and inspired.
Tags: BeadforLife, Boulder CO, community partners
(Re-posted from The Huffington Post November 5th)
Millions of us are actively engaging, volunteering, and serving as never before. And I find it amazing how often the lives we save include our own.Helping other people reach for a brighter day helped me not just survive, but soar, after staggering Ponzi losses. Three years ago, my husband and I were reeling when we discovered that shifty investors had squandered much of our life savings. The losses were heartbreaking. Some of the money was earmarked to launch a long-time dream: a nonprofit to help people in the developing world. Some of it was a cushion to support our oldest son, who struggles with autism and mental illness.
I am beyond grateful for what happened after all this financial ruin hit. The opportunity to go to Uganda to gather the stories of once-starving, HIV-positive refugees suddenly opened up. Still reeling, I grabbed that chance to go to the slums of Kampala and meet inspiring, resilient women from the nonprofit BeadforLife, who are blazing big as they leave poverty behind with their gorgeous beaded jewelry made out of recycled paper. Oprah’s featured them, as have other media outlets.
In 2006, I wrote an article about the beaders for a women’s magazine that sparked fierce grassroots support from women across the U.S. The power of the purse in action. I couldn’t wait to finally meet these African women and their children now going to school with full bellies, uniforms, books and ambitious dreams that somehow belie their harsh beginnings. I was anxious to listen to these grandmothers, mothers, and daughters, who’d somehow escaped rebels with machetes, near death from AIDS, starvation, and malaria, and blistering days crushing rocks to earn $1.
It turned out that trip was perfectly timed. These women were lit up big with their appreciation for friendships, healthy children, the blue sky, red earth, the simplest bowls of soup. They reminded me all over again of one powerful truth: I may be poorer in stuff, but am beyond rich in non-material blessings.
Over two weeks, I saw beaders celebrating the opening of their first savings accounts - and forgot that mine had been drained. In dancing to songs they’d written, like, “We Dance When We are Struggling,” I saw I could transform my struggles into triumphs. I could turn my losses into greater empathy and compassion for people around the world who’d lost everything– homes, health, children, and dreams to AIDS, wars, and poverty.
I could step into my own power and help others feel this electrified by making a difference.
Once home, I felt filled up, hugely grateful. I completed my book, The Give-Back Solution: Create a Better World with Your Time, Talents and Travel, which shines a light on dozens of leading change agents and hundreds of ways we can all make an impact at home or abroad. I supported engineers to get clean water and renewable energy to communities around the world. I rallied more support for BeadforLife.
And we stepped away from our large house. We halved our square footage, sold and donated rooms of furniture, and it became more clear that we may be materially poorer, but are rich in all the ways that count. “It’s not where we live, but how we live” became our mantra.
I’m convinced that giving back is the absolute key to living our best lives. We’re not here to stockpile stuff while others can’t survive. We’re here to grow our hearts and become rich in love and kindness and all the things that matter. That’s a wealth that can sustain us.
Susan Skog
Susan Skog has written about humanitarians and their projects for 20 years. The author of five nonfiction books, including Peace in Our Lifetime and Embracing Our Essence, her work has also appeared in many leading magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, Newsday, Family Circle, Prevention, Good Housekeeping and AARP magazine.
Skog has worked with and volunteered for BeadforLife, which supports Ugandan women, many of whom are HIV-positive refugees.
She is a former manager at Engineers Without Borders-USA, which helps developing world communities realize clean water, energy, and sanitation.
Tags: Bead Circle, beaded jewelry, BeadforLife, Empowering Women, paper jewelry, Uganda, Women Making A Difference
BeadforLife Volunteer Coordinator, Korri Roach, met with Aruna and asked her the following questions:
Aruna Beyers
Where are you from?
I grew up and raised my children in North Virginia. In 1986 the family moved to Sedona, Arizona, so I could pursue my spiritual interests. Soon after, I began traveling the world to lead transformational workshops and facilitate private therapy and spiritual counseling sessions. I have lived and worked in many countries, so I consider myself a citizen of the world. The last place I lived before moving to Longmont was Japan.
What are some of your hobbies, likes, dislikes, interests, passions, etc.?
I adore African music, drums, and dance, and especially enjoy singing African songs with a group in Boulder. My calling/work is life coaching with a focus on spiritual awakening. www.awakeningcoach.com. My greatest joy is seeing the light of pure awareness get turned on in my clients. I am passionate about Truth, unconditional Love and Peace for all beings.
How did you come to be a volunteer for BeadforLife?
Some members of the African singing group also serve on a board that supports a school for needy children in Ghana. I am one of them. Another is an employee of BeadforLife and she told me about the BFL volunteer program.
How long have you been a volunteer with BeadforLife?
I have volunteered for BeadforLife for ten months. I came in to help with last year’s Christmas BeadParty returns on a temporary basis and decided to become a regular volunteer.
How has being a volunteer at BeadforLife changed your life?
I love channeling my energy into something that supports others and have been doing this for many years. BeadforLife has not changed my life, but I am glad to be helping change the lives of others.
What brings you the most joy in your life?
Celebrating life in every moment.
If you could meet any one person, who would it be and why?
I would love to meet Oprah because she is an empowered woman who lives her truth and helps millions of people in the process.
Tags: BeadCircle