The Team here at Wild Hope is very excited about angels!
Allow us to tell you why...
These 6" angels, (plus a slightly larger version and some Christmas stars) are made by a group of financially struggling Maasai ladies that are friends of ours. Over the years we have helped them market some of their traditional bead work and provide a little income for themselves. But during this last year we've encouraged them to a new level!
Julia Veenstra, an American artist living in East Africa, is a friend of Wild Hope. Julia has a passion for the work of local artisans and for creativity to be released and used. She has a passion for women to be helped and for local women to find ways to support their families.
In September Wild Hope hosted our six Maasai artisans friends and Julia for a weekend of training and fellowship. As mentioned, Wild Hope has been able to facilitate different opportunities for these ladies to sell their work, but this was the first time we planned a seminar for them to improve and market their wares.
With Julia's artist eye and knowledge of western markets to guide them, the ladies designed this Christmas Angel. Isn't' she beautiful? You can click on the photo for a larger view.
We wish we could offer these to you for sale (and hopefully we will one day) but our production levels are not up to exporting yet. However, these pretty little ornaments have been selling like hotcakes in Kenya this season. And guess what! A brand new little gift and coffee shop in Arusha, Tanzania is opening and planning to stock them immediately as well.
We are so pleased to have just sent $1,000 of profit to this small group of artisans. Do you have any idea how much money that is to women who live on about $1 a day? Even divided between the six of them, this is a huge blessing of provision. For those of us who have stayed in Maasai villages and experienced life among them, there is a tremendous sense of joy as we think of how this income will help.
What is it we've heard Bono say?
"Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Give a woman micro-credit, she, her husband, her children and her extended family will eat for a lifetime."
The Wild Hope Artisans project is in a seed stage. We are praying and working toward training more women and expanding the work. We're looking down the road to Christmas 2007 and wondering how many more this project will be blessing by then.
Praise God with us for the assistance this job-producing micro-enterprise has already brought... And for what it will do in the future!
No comments:
Post a Comment