Sustainability

BeadforLife Staff on March 8th, 2012

In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay, and voting rights.  Since that simple collaborative action, the world has made great strides in both how women view themselves and how society considers women as economic, political, and social equals to men. Today, on the 101st annual International Women’s Day, [...]

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BeadforLife Staff on March 6th, 2012

The BeadforLife team in Iganga, Uganda has been hard at work helping our members prepare to start sustainable, agricultural business projects by the next crop cycle in April. Over the last few months, all of our members took part in entrepreneurial training activities such as visiting model farms and attending agricultural seminars. They will soon [...]

Continue reading about BeadforLife Bangles for Bikes Exchange

Jennifer Rowell-Gastard on February 28th, 2012

Sarah Goulalamy, BeadforLife-Europe staff member, looks back at her experience working with our organization over the past year, and her efforts to educate and engage Europeans. She then talks about her upcoming visit to Uganda, and the opportunity she’ll have to see the results of her efforts firsthand. Guided by the values of generosity, solidarity [...]

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Devin Hibbard on January 30th, 2012

BeadforLife has some BIG plans for the future.  Our Board of Directors just authorized a significant scale up of activities in Uganda over the next 5 years with some projects  starting as soon as July. Judith Butagira-Tema, our Deputy Director from Uganda, was in Boulder this week to help brainstorm ideas, look at the best [...]

Continue reading about Exciting Changes at BeadforLife

BeadforLife Staff on October 18th, 2011

Since the beginning of the year, the Uganda currency has been falling against the dollar.  When I moved to Uganda in 2008, you could get about 1600 shillings per dollar. Now the rate is around 2900.  Imagine if two years ago you spent $5.50 for a sandwich and today it cost you $10 – that [...]

Continue reading about The Worst Currency In the World

Devin Hibbard on October 11th, 2011

Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs died last week, and although I’m not a Mac user or part of the cult of Apple, I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact he had on the world.  What made Jobs a visionary is not that he created functionality – in fact, there were lots of gadgets that [...]

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BeadforLife Staff on January 10th, 2011

Two years ago Suubi and Sanyu groups were enrolled into the BeadforLife program, their faces wore a heaviness that could only be interpreted as sadness, worrying, hopelessness and anxiety. They came and rolled many million beads which became small and big businesses, houses, education for their children, independence, acceptance by the community and families. Recalls [...]

Continue reading about The end is only the beginning!

Margaret Grondorf on October 19th, 2010

Recently,  I was sent a stunning visual representation of just how large a continent Africa really is.  Initially, I was struck by the creative artistry and such close approximation of how each country wholly nestles into Africa.  After fully digesting the numbers, a new sense of understanding Africa’s larger problems began to emerge. The sheer [...]

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In our never ending commitment to becoming more sustainable, the BeadforLife environmental committee attended a “greening your office” session last Friday.  The Business Leaders in Action for Sustainability Today or BLAST! is an entity created by the folks at Amadeus Consulting, an amazing tech consulting group who offers a free presentation to other businesses and [...]

Continue reading about A “BLAST” from the future: BeadforLife takes a tour to learn how to green our Boulder office.

It was a bright Friday morning; everybody seemed overwhelmed by the activities going on in inventory as we prepared for our very first sea shipment in a huge container that would carry our beads and shea butter to America. Despite the humming and singing of gospel music that goes on in inventory, everyone seemed busy [...]

Continue reading about From Uganda to the USA -It takes enthusiasm and commitment to make it all happen!