Life is Good...

Sometimes, life is good. Like now, for instance.

Kullakas, the Aymara women's crafts cooperative from Bolivia, is working with the remarkable Rebecca Kousky of the not-for-profit, Nest, looking to perhaps sell some of their products on Nest's very busy web site, and getting some assistance with product design from Nest's professional design consultants. 

The senior women I am working with here in St. Petersburg continue to make lovely little toys for poor children. In January, they painted jigsaw puzzles that we mailed off to our friends affiliated with Vida Nueva Cooperative in Oaxaca, Mexico. Also sent off in the same package were the prenatal vitamins and folic acid from our vitamin collection. This past week, eight of the senior women met and decorated little beany baby type toys with brightly colored fabric paints.  (You can see our little group in the photo above; that "slightly younger" yet tired looking woman in the pink shirt is yours truly, fighting a bad cold--yes, we do get colds down here in Florida, believe it or not.) These little stuffed toys will go overseas with a pediatric medical mission, and will be used to soothe and comfort little patients before and after surgery.

Carol Mitchell and I are working with the local YWCA on the possibility of helping them start a fair trade craft shop. We are collecting lists of fair trade organizations we have worked with that might be potential sources of crafts for their shop.

Several of us are preparing to host a crafts day at the home of Audrey Steele here in St. Petersburg the first Saturday of March. For a donation that will benefit the Vida Nueva cooperative, women are invited to come try their hands at rug hooking, doll making, scrap booking and wax resist Easter egg making, while snacking and socializing, for a few hours or all day, depending on their time and disposition. We look forward to it not only being a great fundraiser, but a great day out together! Audrey is tireless in helping economically disadvantaged women and children; recently she opened her house for a fundraiser that brought in money for a Kenyan orphanage.

And finally, I am looking at the possibility of bringing a show of peruvian "cuadros" to the St. Petersburg area, which I will speak about in a future blog posting. (In the interim, want to know what a "cuadro" is?--just look at the picture accompanying this posting.)

For now, suffice it to say, I am busy, and very happily so. Having so many wonderful projects to keep busy with is exciting as well as deeply satisfying. I am grateful for the opportunity to have fun projects to be able to be a part of with so many good women. As you can see, right now, life is indeed very good!

"Stay Another Day..."

More and more people are traveling to southeast Asia. If you're thinking of taking a trip in the near future to Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos, check out the web site www.stayanotherday.org . Stay Another Day is an "initiative promoting sustainable tourism" with an emphasis on hospitality and crafts organizations that employ the poor, the homeless and the handicap. The web site tells you about organizations, such as Vietnam Quilts and Craft Link in Hanoi, among others, giving you information on how and when to visit them, what kind of experience you can expect to have visiting them, what kind of services or products they provide, etc. Some of the organizations have cafes and cooking lessons, while others having working artisans on site who can show you how to throw a pot on a ceramics wheel or some other of their crafting techniques. It's a wonderful way to help you see behind the typical tourist attractions to have  a deeper encounter with the people and the culture, and view the inside workings of not-for-profits struggling to make a difference in the lives of the economically disadvantaged; organizations that actually want you to come visit and see what they're doing! Stay Another day invites you to have a different kind of experience of a foreign country--a meaningful encounter that can provide better futures for struggling artisans.

www.stayanotherday.org 

Looking to Go to Ghana?

Is anyone out there interested in going to Ghana for a week or two, or three, or more, to work with African children, helping them with their computer skills, or doing art projects that not only actually finance their educations but also assist them in developing self-esteem and a sense of empowerment?

Ellie Schimelman of the Cross Cultural Collaborative is looking for volunteers to come to Accra, Ghana, for whatever amount of time you can spare, to work with the youth affiliated with her art center, located on the African coast. She offers a great opportunity for anyone with computer skills in Word and Publisher, to work with the kids developing their own story books, or for anyone artistically inclined to oversee the kids' handmade paper books project, while enjoying an immersion into African culture and crafts. The kids make beautiful notebooks and journals like the ones in the photo, which are sold to help pay their school tuitions. 

For a very modest fee, Ellie will provide you with room and board at her seaside art center and bed and breakfast while you're working with the kids. Having lived in Ghana for twenty years, she is very familiar with local and regional artisans, and can arrange for you tailored-made arts and crafts trips and experiences with professional African artisans based on your own wants and needs. If you don't necessarily want to work with children, but would love to go to Africa to experience its rich culture and artistic heritage firsthand, Ellie offers yearly crafts tours in Ghana, usually in January or during the summer, as well as the opportunity to simply come and be at her arts center, and plan your own agenda, with her wisdom and assistance if you so choose.

I would also request that, if anyone knows of a market for these notebooks, or would be interested in selling them yourself, please contact Ellie at aba@culturalcollaborative.org. Cross Cultural Collaborative's web site is http://culturalcollaborative.org : take a look at all the wonderful options they offer for travel and crafts adventures in Ghana. And thanks for taking a moment to think of ways we might help these African children continue to sell the lovely notebooks and journals to a wider audience.

Building a Nest for Poor Women Artisans

I have had the good fortune to be in touch with Rebecca Kousky, the young founder of Nest. Nest is a not for profit organization dedicated to changing the lives of women artisans in developing countries by helping them build entrepreneurial arts and crafts businesses. Nest helps artisans start up or expand crafts businesses through micro-credit loans which they use to purchase supplies with which to create their crafts or run their businesses. Artisans repay their loans not with money but with their products, which Nest then sells online. Nest also sells the arts and crafts of more established artisans. A percentage of the proceeds from sales by these craftswomen are set aside to provide micro loans for other artisans.

Rebecca has very kindly agreed to work with our friends in Kullakas Cooperative, seeing what she might be able to do for them in terms of marketing their products, or perhaps giving them advise for creating new products that appeal to young people. For their part, Kullakas is meeting in Bolivia this week to decide how to proceed with working with Rebecca and Nest. It is an exciting collaboration, the results of which are still uncertain, but I will remain grateful to and humbled by Rebecca for her willingness to investigate a possible collaboration with the women.

Please take a look at Rebecca's web site: www.buildanest.com . She also as a great blog http://nest-buildanest.blogspot.com , and there is a fabulous little video, taking maybe 6-7 minutes, of an interview with Rebecca on CNN on their news show "Young People that Rock".

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2007/08/10/ypwr.intv.rebecca.kousky.cnn

Rebecca definitely is a "young person who rocks", and one who is working tirelessly and selflessly to create a better world for women artisans. Consider her web site next time you need a gift that you know will do double duty--making the recipient happy, as well as providing an artist in the developing world with the gift of an income.

Warm Wishes from ArtAidsArt

Today I received these photos from Tom Harding, our friend at ArtAidsArt. You'll remember that ArtAidsArt assists craftswomen in South Africa, many of them HIV+, with establishing and maintaining crafts-related businesses. One of ArtAidsArt's "side projects" is to provide Black dolls for the children of these artisans; children who live in poor shanty towns and areas that were formerly designated as Black townships, and have few if any toys. 

In collaboration with Dollies without Borders, and our dear friend Madeline Austin, women from St. Anthony's Hospital and St. John's, Newfoundland, provided over two dozen dolls to go to children in South Africa through ArtAidsArt. Looking through these photos, I'm not sure any of those dolls are among the ones that were given to these women, although Tom sent us a lovely message thanking us for them, noting that the women in one of the pictures--teachers at the preschool that received the dolls--are actually singing a spontaneous song of thanksgiving for the dolls! So how could I not publish these photos--even though, as I said, I don't think they're our dolls, Tom...sorry...

Anyway, it's still a great opportunity to share some fantastic photos, and put a plug in for two great organizations working with the arts and the poor! Check out www.artaidsart.org and www.dollieswithoutborders.com .

Warm Wishes from Old Friends

I just recently received these lovely photos from Pastora Gutierrez Reyes, taken back in November of the "doll gifting" event in the Pueblo of Benito Juarez. As you'll remember, we sent a box of 40 dolls to the women of Vida Nueva Cooperative to distribute to poor children in some of the outlying pueblos where the cooperative works. I know the photos are a little late in arriving, but they are simply precious none the less. These adorable little faces will warm your heart despite the chilly weather. 

Not everyone wanted a doll--although many of the boys did opt for one, as you can see by the photos. The women of the cooperative also bought some plastic balls to distribute to the children who didn't want a doll, and, in keeping with their respect and reverence for the elders among them, appointed the eldest member of the cooperative to distribute the gifts. 

We are extremely grateful for our collaborative relationship with the good women of Vida Nueva Cooperative. On Saturday, March 7th, we are holding a day of food, fundraising and crafting here in St. Petersburg to benefit the outreach work the cooperative does--such as teaching traditional herbal medicine, raising awareness around domestic violence, and supplying poor women and children  with vitamins and folic acid. If you live in the St. Petersburg area and would like to join us, by all means don't hesitate to contact me at karen_rushen@yahoo.com .

Brrr, it's cold out there!

Yes, even in Florida, where normally at this time of year we're running around in sandals in 80 degree weather, we're experiencing frost on the ground mornings and chilly nights! So I offer to you all a little "soup for the soul" sent to us by our friend and fellow crafts woman with a heart for charity crafting, Rose Berry, of Tomah, Wisconsin. "Heidi's Wild Rice Soup" is a family recipe that Rose is very kindly sharing with us, perfect for this bone-chilling weather! Enjoy!

Heidi's Wild Rice Soup

3/4 cup wild rice

1 Tbsp. oil

4 cups water

salt to taste

1 medium onion

1 rib celery

1/2 cup butter ( 2 Tbsp. also works for the calorie conscious)

1 to 2 carrots, shredded

3 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups reserved rice broth

2 cups half and half (again, weight watchers, skin milk works!)

3/4 cup ham or chicken

1/2 tsp. rosemary

fresh parsley chopped 1/2 cup flour

Saute the wild rice in vegetable oil. Add the water and salt. Cook the rice until it's about 3/4 done. (Chewier than you'd like) Drain, reserving the 1 and 1/2 cups of the liquid from cooking the rice. Saute onion, celery and carrot in butter in a soup pot until onion is transparent. Turn down the heat. Mix flour in thoroughly and cook about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Do not brown. Using a wire whisk, blend in hot chicken stock and rice stock. Cook, allowing to thicken slightly. Add the half and half, or milk, blending thoroughly. Add rice and meat, salt, pepper, and rosemary. Simmer 20 minutes. Make 10 absolutely delicious 6 oz. servings! It is recommended that you make this the day before, as it tastes better after sitting a day or so.

Stay warm, my friends!