Living--Just Barely--on $2 a Day

I spent some time over Labor Day weekend sorting through our cash donations and fair trade craft item purchases from two events in August: our doll making marathon retreat, and the dinner and a movie night to support the Fistula Foundation of Addis Ababa. I had to box up the remaining crafts to be mailed back to ArtAidsArt and Bead for Life, as well as tally our cash contributions and mail them off. In the end, we raised close to $650 for BOTH organizations, with our total purchases reaching nearly $1,300.

Many women throughout the world try to support themselves and their families on $2 a day or less. Raising $1,300 in fair trade crafts sales is nearly equivalent to providing income for a woman and her family for over a year and a half. 

Of course, that's not to say that anyone can really live on $2 a day, even in poor countries where the cost of most basics is far less than in the developed world. Traveling overseas in many third world countries, I was surprised to see that many products--toilet paper, processed foods, over the counter medications, etc.--are being sold for nearly the same price as in America. Living on $2 a day often means living on one meal a day, forgoing an education or medical care, and living without adequate heat or clean running water (not to mention toilet paper, processed foods and over the counter drugs!).

What's great about groups like Bead for Life and ArtAidsArt is that they don't just provide a decent living wage for women artisans in the form of a just wage for a nicely crafted product. These organizations take portions of the proceeds from crafts sales and plow them back into the community in the form of educational scholarships, subsidized healthcare and HIV awareness training, drilling projects for clean water, and building projects that will benefit the entire village. They listen to and work with the craftswomen so that projects that are important to the women and the entire community, and that will ultimately lead to independence, are funded. Please check out their websites and consider hosting a crafts sale at your next women's gathering: www.beadforlife.org and www.artaidsart.org .