How You Can Help

Around the world, over one billion people live in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than one dollar a day. This means people having to make choices between food and medicine, or which child gets medical care. All of the members of BeadforLife were living in extreme poverty before joining – now they are eating well, sending their children to school, and starting small businesses.

Extreme poverty can be ended. BFL members are typical of impoverished people around the world – determined, hardworking, and smart, but lacking opportunities to lift their families from poverty.

Here are ways you can make a difference on extreme poverty worldwide.

Support BeadforLife

• Make a donation. Donations to BeadforLife go directly towards eradicating poverty in Uganda. 93 cents of every dollar is invested in community development work fighting extreme poverty, including projects in health care, vocational training for out-of-school youth, affordable housing, and entrepreneurial skills development. BeadforLife is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (tax ID: 20-1683139) so donations are deductible to the extent of the law.

  (At this time, we are not able to accept donations from residents of the state of Mississippi)

  

Payment can be made with Paypal or Credit Cards; if you do not have a Paypal account, select 'continue to checkout' at the bottom of the page after pressing the donation button.

To make a donation by check, please send to:

BeadforLife
1143 Portland Pl. Suite 1
Boulder CO 80304

Volunteer in our Boulder office - click here

• Host a party or bring beads to your community event. It is fun and easy to bring BFL to your friends. Have a party and help people living in extreme poverty at the same time. We make it easy with step-to-step guides, educational materials, and lots of beautiful beads.
• Buy Beads. Purchase our jewelry, notecards, CDs and jewelry bags for yourself, or make them gifts that that give twice – once to the recipient and once to the women in Uganda lifting her family from poverty.
• Sponsor a Ugandan Youth through Vocational Training
  BeadforLife often identifies bright, young, out-of-work Ugandans who are enthusiastic about the chance to learn practical and technical skills that will enable them to gain stable employment and break the cycle of poverty. For these determined youth, most of whom have been forced to discontinue their schooling because they are poor and can not afford the fees, Vocational Training offers the surest path away from the low-paying, temporary jobs that are the only options available to unskilled workers. Please visit our Vocational Training Sponsorship page to find out more about these inspiring young men and women and how you can assist them achieve their dream of leaving poverty behind.

 

Be an antipoverty advocate -  many things make a difference for those living in extreme poverty.

Fair Trade  - we have found that what people really want is the opportunity to support their families through honest hard work.  But in many countries, there are few jobs or opportunities for the poor.  In some cases, trade rules unfairly discriminate against farmers and merchants from developing countries.  Many organizations are working to make trade fair.  Others, including BeadforLife, promote Fair Trade items which pay people living wages. 
Take Action to Make US Trade Laws Fair
Purchase Fair Trade items – from coffee to cotton shirts.  Shop to make a difference.

 

Universal Primary Education – providing access to elementary education has a strong impact on countries moving out of poverty and is one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.  Yet many countries can’t afford to pay for education, and most children remain illiterate for life. Helping support and fund primary education for all children – educating girls has an especially strong impact – would build the platform for other development to take place.
Take Action to Call for Universal Primary Education

 

Debt Cancellation – many countries are laboring to repay massive debts and divert funding for health or education to pay loan interest.  An international movement has sought debt cancellation for many developing countries.  Those that have received debt cancellation have invested in their citizens, providing education, vaccines, and other basic services.   
Take Action on Debt Cancellation

 

Support the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.  The United Nations has outlined an integrated approach to fight extreme poverty worldwide, and has a strategy to achieve their goals.  Creating awareness about and government funding support for this strategy would go a long way towards creating the kind of coordinated international approach necessary. 
Click here to find out more about the Millennium Development Goals.

 

Support increased, and more effective, US funding for development projects around the world.  While many people think US international assistance disappears into a black hole, our experience in Uganda shows us how effective US aid can be – many of the HIV-positive members of our group get lifesaving AIDS drugs because of US government funding.  US government assistance can make a difference but we need to give aid that is both more effective, and in higher amounts. 

Making aid more effective involves several things. One is eliminating ‘tied-aid’ which is funding that we require to be spent on goods from the US .  So our funds are used to purchase US corn or AIDS drugs, when buying them locally would be cheaper and create local jobs and industry.  We can also increase the effectiveness of assistance by insisting that dollars go to help the very poor, rather than hiring US consultants.  Finally, we can stop using international assistance to support relative rich nations like Israel and Saudi Arabia , and instead target it towards truly impoverished regions.
For more information on making aid effective, click here.

In addition to increasing effectiveness, we need to increase the amount of aid we provide.  Among all developed countries, the US is last in terms of per capita international assistance. The US has committed on many occasions to devote .07% of our budget towards foreign assistance but has failed to do so.  We currently only spend a penny out of every dollar the federal government spends for international aid.

Think big - understand the connections between poverty, women’s rights, agriculture, education, and how our personal actions and government policy in the developed world affect poor people worldwide.
For more background on how many global issues are interconnected, click here.

THANK YOU *WAY BALE NYO *MERCI *APPOIYO* GRAZIE