One day last month, I found myself consumed with anxiety, primarily about finances. I’d had dental surgery that cost more than my first new car (OK, the car was a Honda Civic, but still, it was brand new) and that was minor compared to the two mortgages we’d been paying for months while waiting for a house to sell.
On that particular morning, I was researching an article on Fair Trade when something intriguing popped up on my computer screen: the bead women of Uganda. These women make handmade beads and sell them in a cooperative called Bead for Life. I clicked on ‘meet the beaders’ and the face of Christine Layat smiled back at me on the screen. Christine is 33, has three children, and supports two AIDS orphans. Ten years ago, her husband was killed by rebel forces. Her family often eats just one meal a day. She works in a rock quarry during the day and rolls beads at night by candlelight.
Another woman, Nicolina Adang, left her village seven years ago after a brutal rebel attack. She supports nine children, four of her own and five orphans. Before joining Bead For Life, her only income was crushing rock in a quarry for a dollar a day. Now, she says, her children have enough food ‘to close their eyes at night.’
I clicked on more names and found devastating stories of women with HIV, living in one-room shacks with dirt floors and no electricity or plumbing, struggling just to feed their families.
Uh oh. My perspective on the sorry state of my finances just got blown to pieces. Here I was, reading about the Ugandan women from my laptop, in a coffee shop, which I drove to in my four-wheel drive. I have a husband who works hard (when he’s not skiing, fishing, or riding his mountain bike.) I have one child, who just earned more money babysitting over the weekend than Nicolina Adang earns in a month at the quarry. And although the floors in my home may look like dirt, there is actually hardwood underneath. I have running water and electricity. I am not HIV positive.
As I read on, feeling sorry for these women, it became clear that they did not feel sorry for themselves. Despite their poverty and tragic circumstances, these women are survivors, possessing incredible strength and spirit. And if you were to meet one of these beaders and ask what you could do to help her, she’d ask you to throw a party – a Bead Party, to be specific. (Think Tupperware, but with cooler merchandise, and all proceeds going to a great cause.) I clicked on ‘Host a Bead Party’ and set a date to raise money for these sisters half a world away.
Bead for Life was started by an American woman named Torkin Wakefield, who accompanied her husband – an AIDS doctor – to Uganda. One fortuitous day, Wakefield met a Ugandan woman rolling beads in the sun, and purchased a couple of the woman’s necklaces. She received so many compliments on the jewelry that she decided to help the woman and other local beaders find an outlet for selling their beads. Wakefield brought a few hundred necklaces and bracelets to the U.S., and realized that there was a strong market for the unique and colorful jewelry. The effort snowballed into the non-profit group called Bead For Life, which now has almost 400 members.
The money earned by making beads goes directly toward buying food and medicine, paying school fees, and even saving to start small businesses. The organization has partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for many of the Bead For Life families. One woman with AIDS is saving for a downpayment ‘…so my children have a place to live when I die.’ Since each beader supports numerous family members, the money raised by Bead For Life reaches almost 4,000 people.
The beads are made by hand rolling long, thin strips of colorful magazine paper – thus recycling – then varnishing and stringing into different styles of necklaces and bracelets. Each bead is unique; if you look closely, you can even see a letter or two of print on some of them. While examining one bracelet, I noticed the words ‘HIV positive’ legible among the swirls. Could anything be a more direct reminder of the women who sit under the African sun and roll these beads?
On April 5, more than 50 people attended a Bead For Life party at the Glenshire residence of my friends Anna Toso and Nick Schiestel, who offered their spacious home for the event. Our daughters, Dana, Hannah and Jenna, helped arrange an artful display of more than 300 necklaces and bracelets.
Carrie Ferlin, a teacher at Alder Creek Middle School, was inspired by her student, Hannah, to attend the bead party. ‘Hannah’s enthusiastic support of this cause reached beyond the scope of most young teens,’ said Carrie.
At a craft table, some of the guests tried rolling a bead from strips of magazine paper. ‘It’s really hard to roll a bead,’ said Anna’s daughter, Dana. ‘The skill level and craftsmanship that goes into these is so amazing. You can’t find it anywhere else.’
The mission of Bead For Life is not just to raise money for the beaders, but to educate people about extreme poverty in war-torn Uganda. To this end, the organization provides a 10-minute DVD, explaining its mission and the ways in which the money raised through bead parties improves the lives of so many Ugandan families.
‘You can see from the video the difference we can make by buying these beautiful beads,’ said Glenshire resident Lynn Richardson. ‘It’s wonderful to know that all the money goes back to the organization to help these women and their communities.’
By the end of the party, we’d raised $1,700 for Bead For Life. (The event was so successful, we featured the beads at Earth Day, and raised another $1,350.) That money will allow a lot of Ugandan children to go to bed with a full belly, and others to get medicine to treat their AIDS. Thanks to Bead For Life, a Ugandan mother now rolls beads in her new little home, knowing that a landlord can never force her off her property. She might even be able to afford a couch to sit on. Now, she only has to walk a short distance to get clean water from a pump, and she’ll supplement her family’s dinner with vegetables grown from a small garden next to her house.
And the women of Truckee? Well, they get to adorn themselves with beautiful necklaces and bracelets. But that’s not all. I think everyone at the party was elevated in spirit. Many women said that wearing the jewelry will remind them of the Ugandan beaders and the fact that, even on our worst days here in Truckee, we are indeed blessed with great abundance. Sometimes we just need a little shift in our perspective to remind us of that.
To learn more about Bead For Life, or to host your own bead party, visit beadforlife.org.
