It is worth it if we can change one, only one life!

Posted by Jane

November 28, 2008

The following is a Business Development Update by Rachel Ngondo, Regional Development Executive, Africa

I hope you all have a had a good week. It is always a pleasure to tell you what I have been up to.

In the past two weeks I have been busy meeting and visiting various producers and as always, I am reminded that we do makes a huge difference in someone’s life.

Bega kwa Bega is the Swahili phase meaning ‘ Shoulder to Shoulder’. This is the name for a self help group started by the community in Korogocho slums of Nairobi, with the help of the Catholic church. The group has various projects which were started in order to provide employment to girls and single mothers rescued from the streets of Nairobi. The girls and young women are trained in production of various handicraft items and employed at the centre. The group supplies to various Fair trade buyers who have paid them through our clearing house. This has enabled the women earn a livelihood and live respectable lives. I had the pleasure to meet with the project manger and one of the members of the group to discuss the possibility of them becoming a member of our Clearing house, to enable them access funds for trade and to grow their organisation. Financing this project would not only provide employment to these young women but also provide an opportunity for more to be rescued from the streets.

The mentally handicapped children in most families are neglected and end up living a life of misery only them know. To counter this, Jacaranda special school in Nairobi ( which was started in the 1940’s to take care of people injured during the 2^nd world war) takes care of mentally handicapped children, by providing them with suitable education for their needs. In addition, the school started Jacaranda workshop, which takes on the graduates from the special school and trains them in various handiwork skills. The workshop was created because when they graduated from the special school, the graduates could not fit in the conventional job market because of their special needs. For many years, the workshop supplied beautiful jewelry to fair trade buyers in Europe and the US. Today the workshop sells mainly to Ten Thousand Villages Canada who make payments to them through our clearing house.

One of the many positive stories about this project is that they helped rescue a mentally disabled girl from a forced marriage. She is now a grown up woman and from the wages she earns from her work at the workshop, she has saved enough money to buy her own piece of land!

I leave you with one quote from Nelson Mandela ‘What is life for, if not to make life better for one another.’

Do have a lovely weekend.