I am now working on designing new bags to go into Enterprise -in- a box, a brilliant scheme which offers teenagers a chance to take an ethical product and find ways to sell it to make a profit. Wish there was something like that when I was a teenager, although I did make cakes and sell them to the neighbours!
Check out the brilliant work they are doing to encourage and motivate young people people; visit http://www.enterpriseinabox.org/
For the last year bags of colour has been running on a very small scale and has managed to provide work for a local family, who have been helping me to run the project and for 3 other women.
It is now time to return to Sri Lanka to bring this idea into full blossom, and offer the opportunity to more women in poorer communities, and to hopefully create a solid foundation from which the project can then be extended to other developing countries.
Currently funds to develop the project are limited, but faith and determination is plentiful, so I will keep marching forward and trust that it will come together beautifully. However if you would like to donate to help this small project grow then we would be very grateful you can do so by following the link below. http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv12/bethshepherd.com/wwwroot/page16.htm
Hi I have just discovered to my surprise that the Spanish Insight has just published another story about Bags of Colour, actually they have used the story from my recent news letter on the project and put me as the author, so I have officially had my first magazine article published…. so I am very excited, as this has been a dream of mine.
They first published my story of setting up Bags of Colour in May 09 edition, they did such a good job and gave me a full page spread, adding in some creative graphics with the bags. I am so touched by the support and encouragement they have given me, it really gives me the strength to keep going!! Thanks Julie and everyone from Spanish Insight.
Check out the links below to see the stories.
http://www.spanishinsight.com/magazine.php?ver=may09&docid=090602132403-100130ac42b440bf8cf5d7b86b520289 (MAY edition)
http://www.spanishinsight.com/magazine.php?ver=spanishinsight-august09&docid=090817133154-81ada2411083474ab68b144edb9bd496 (AUG edition)
Seizing opportunities!
Lalitha’s Story continued!
Lalitha’s is one of the first ladies I brought into the project; you may have read her story in my blog. She lives with her mother in a tsunami affected fishing village just on the edge of Colombo. Her house, to our eyes looks like a shack, but to her and her mother it is home and it is all they have. Surrounded by many other families in similar conditions, many much worst. Believe it or not, this small cluster of homes, nestled between the shores of the beach and the train tracks (actually so close to the train track that I would say most people there could touch the passing train from inside their house) is situated right next to one of the best hotels in Sri Lanka, Mount Lavina, a 5 start colonial style grand place, with rooms for $120 a night, seems so unbalanced.
Lalitha is 43, and never married, and in Sri Lankan culture there is little chance of her marrying at her age, and with hardly any work for women life was a real struggle for her. So when Lalitha joined my project it was a big turning point for her, and she quickly seized the opportunity and began making more bags than anyone else. It was a turning point for me too, as the project had just begun and she got it going for me, working along side the family and sending regular boxes of bags to sell, not to mention that her ability to seize the opportunity given to her, (when 5 other women form her village who were also given the opportunity turned it down complaining it was too far to come on the bus) has been a huge inspiration to me in my own journey to get this project up and running.
When I saw her I knew she had strength and determination, and I only wanted motivated women, women who could use bags of colour as a stepping stone to move out of poverty. I prayed that I would find the right women and I did. However last week I found out she has got a job in Dubai as a house maid and has now left Sri Lanka and our project. My immediate reaction was oh no I have let her down I didnt provided enough work for her and she has had to go else where. What a crazy way to look at this and when my panic subsided, I looked at it for what it truly is, I had given her the means to move forward and out of poverty, I had done exactly what I had intended, I had become so caught up in the fact that I hadn’t yet got the ‘big order’ I thought the project needed to help these women that I over looked that I was helping them.
Nearly every Sri Lankan I met, who was living in poverty knew that a job in the middle east for a couple of years would give them enough money to return to Sri Lanka and help their family to make that shift out of poverty and even use that money to set up a small business in their paradise island which they love so much. Lalitha was clever she knew what she was doing, using the money from bags of colour to get her visa and her flight out and up. She is an inspiration to me and I am blessed to have had the opportunity to help her on her way.
Now our project is one woman short, one very brilliant woman, but I am sure that there are a 1000 more to fill her place. I just need to get out there and find her.
Life is beautiful when you see it for what it really is!
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