Last week we were broken into. I can't tell you how discouraging it is to spend so much time and energy on self protection. I feel like every other week we are adding a wall, a security camera, a new security employee, a gate, a lock. I can imagine how much more we would be able to pay if this wasn't a part of our budget. We lost more than $2000 in damages and theft this week. Then we spent another $1500 on beefing up security. Discouraging to say the least.
I shut down the house for the week, signed off of Facebook (as I don't know how to respond to some of the "encouragement" I get sometimes- you know what I mean... pat answers when you are feeling bad sometimes grate.), and put an out of office reply on my email.
spent the week with my kids. We went swimming, went to their school for a soccer game and tried to relax as much as possible.
When we opened up on Monday, I had a meeting with the artisans.
It went something like this:
" This is a small neighborhood. Everybody knows everybody's business and I know that someone knows who keeps stealing from us. I'm not going to lie, I don't feel like being here today. I don't really want to come to work today. The safety of my family is more important to me that this business.
Everyday you come to work with your sad stories about how you are dying and need help with this or with that. When I pay, you put a grimace on your face because you don't want anyone to know what you got. And I get that. I know that you have to protect yourself as well. No one can know how much you just sold this week, or else you will get stolen from, but my heart can't handle all this negativity. I need to know- just once in a while- that what I am doing is working. That somehow it is helping you. That somehow it is making a difference in your lives. I know how much I pay every week, so I know that for many of you, it has changed your lives, but when all I hear is how it's never enough, it is really discouraging. I can't go on if I don't start hearing some stories that encourage me."
With that I started to cry.
I think you could have heard a pin drop in the artisan center.
I asked them to just work quietly for the day and that I would be in my office catching up on a weeks worth of emails.
I retired to my cave of an office (the monster of a bead room) and pulled out the laptop.
About 25 seconds later a quiet knock on the door.
I ignored it.
15 seconds later.
A little bit louder.
"Entre".....
Harry shyly steps into the room. Harry is a father of two, and he and his wife Angeline have been working for AP for just over a year. He is one of my most intelligent and hardest workers. If any new design needs to be made, or a special order needs to be filled, Harry can do it.
And he is always kind. Kind to his wife, kind to his kids.
He is about 5"3" and has gained about 40 pounds this year, which of course makes me pleased as it is a luxury to be a bit overweight in Haiti. His wife and he walk to work about a mile everyday together and are one of those rare couples that just get along. They are refreshing.
Harry approached me with his quiet lisp and says:
"Shelley, I just wanted you to know that I only need $600 more dollars until I buy my own land."
"Well, how much does the land cost?" I ask.
"2600 US dollars" He replied. " Angeline and I have been saving all this year and have $2000 in our bank accounts. We are almost there. After we buy the land, we will start building a house. And my kids have been in school since I started working here. I just wanted to say thank you for all that you have done for my family this year."
With that he slipped out the door.
I melted.
Good news. How lovely.
Harry has been working hard supplementing our growing demand for the fundraiser bracelets. He works like crazy every evening after spending a day on piece work with me in order that someday his kids will have a brighter future. Now is his time. He is one of the ones who "gets its". He grabs it, he wrestles with it, and he is changing his life.
Kudos to Angeline and Harry.
And thank you for the words that erased all of the discouragement from the week and reminded me that it is ALL WORTH IT. It really is.

Sandals that grow on Trees

I wish I had a tree that grew sandals. And tennis shoes.
Everyday as I walk the streets in my neighborhood (been trying to get out and exercise more) a host of street kids greet me and usually walk with me. They show me their shoes. Day after day, their sandals are broken, their shoes have holes. Day after day they want to go to school but can't because they don't have the proper footwear. I have become a bit numb to their pleas as I know that they will go through their cheap flip flops in about two days and then they will need to be replaced again. ( Haiti terrain is not good on shoes or tires!). I can't fix everything I tell them. I explain that I don't have money for "aid" as I am too busy paying my working artisans. The kids have learned to stop asking me for shoes everyday and life goes on.... they still seem to  love me even though I can't give them everything they want.
But yesterday something hit me. I was walking home by myself and saw a little girl about the same age as Keziah on the side of the street just weeping. I took a closer peek at her face and saw that she was one of our very own artisans oldest daughters and she was pretty far from home. Thinking she was lost or being picked on, I approached her and asked her what the matter was.
She picked up her flip flop in complete desolation and sputtered through tears,
"Sandal mwen te kase!!!"
My sandal broke.
The part between the toes had detached from the sole and she was desperately trying to stick it back in and figure out how to anchor it. The recent rains have brought mud and water and sandals or shoes become all the more important in these seasons.
I have become used to being unmoved by the needs I see everywhere ( as one could not function in Haiti without some level of turning the constant needs "off"), but in this moment I was moved. I piggy back carried her to my house and scoured through Keziah's old shoes to find just the right pair. A pink pair of slip ons with Hello Kitty embroidered on the outside. Keziah also was feeling generous and so gave away Ember's Polly pockets to Nadege's little girl. (I'm sure Ember won't notice)
She skipped away joyfully. Much more excited about the Polly Pockets then the shoes I think.
It felt good to have my heart be awakened. It felt good to do something about it. I just still wish there were trees that grew sandals, and shoes and vitamins, and worm medicine.... I wish.

What would you do with all of your power?

As I work and drive and wander and sweat around Haiti, I often find myself with the same song stuck in my head.  Every time this happens, I have the same response;  I know exactly why the song has come to mind and I immediately think, "I really need to write a blog about this..."  Well, the song is the "Yeah Yeah Yeah song" by the Flaming lips, and this is that blog.  You can listen to the song in the embedded YouTube clip at the end of this blog... but wait until you get there.  For now, just read the lyrics:


 If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everybody poor just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
If you could take all the love without giving any back
Would you do it?
And so we cannot know ourselves or what we'd really do...

With all your power
With all your power
With all your power
What would you do?

If you could make your own money and then give it to everybody
Would you do it?
If you knew all the answers and could give it to the masses
Would you do it?
No No No No No No Are you crazy?
It's a very dangerous thing to do exactly what you want...
Because you cannot know yourself or what you'd really do...

With all your power
With all your power
With all your power
What would you do?

This song comes to mind so often because Haiti has shown me more about the varieties of power that I already have, powers that I never noticed before living here.  I've also seen power relationships as the primary cultural difference between the U.S. and Haiti, and opportunities to feel this difference come daily.  Haiti has also taught me to stop seeing the world's poor as powerless, voiceless people, fated to misery unless heroic Americans come to their rescue.  They do not have the same ease of opportunity that we Americans have created, but they have not been abandoned by God, nor are they less capable of greatness than anybody else.  To use a tired and nonsensical metaphor, It may be difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps if people keep lighting those bootstraps on fire, and if those fires have left very little bootstrap remaining on which one might pull, but when boots become hopeless, there are always sandals.  And Haitians can do some amazing running on rocky terrain without any shoes at all that might make us Americans realize how dependent we have become upon our boots.... At any rate, the poor are only made more poor by announcing to them the poverties we see from an outside perspective.  By telling them what we would expect them to have, we increase their own perception of need and create dehumanized recipient-minded people dependent upon outside charity.  If we would affirm the powers that we see they do have, they would also begin to recognize the responsibilities that they carry, and that, I think, would be a place to start.  The same is true about you and I.  The truth is that, albeit limited, Haitian people have power.  Maybe for some that power is little more than the ability to wash clothes.  For others, that power is control over a factory, or political sway through a relationship with a cousin.  Whatever it is, all Haitians have at least a little bit of power.  That power can be used to change this place for the better.

The 'Lips song reminds me of something Abraham Lincoln once said: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”  Now, by nature of its author, this quote makes us think about levels of power that most of us have not attained.  It's tempting to think of the tests of power on ones character in terms of unreachable heights of authority.   The popular quote from Lord Acton, that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  tends to buttress our skepticism toward those who have excessive power rather than cause us to evaluate our own positions of power.  I've thought of this while watching the "Occupy" movement from afar.  While scads of Americans bemoan the "1%" I'm left wondering from Haiti whether the "99%" recognize that they are actually %5 of the world's population and that they are consuming more than a quarter of its' purchasable resources.  I wonder if they see themselves as exploited or exploiter in this arrangement, or if they view it differently, as I do.  You see, I don't really think this talk of the "haves and have-nots" really helps the poor.  There are very few "have-nots" in this world... there are billions of "have-not-much's"  and to confuse them is to further impoverish the poor.

Most American school children will at some point write an essay entitled "if I were President" or "if I won the lottery" or, maybe "If I were God".   They write these fledgling treatises of youthful idealism from the perspective of the powerless 5th grader, or the young and uninfluential junior-higher.    They don't write as if they are the distant employers of toy manufacturers in China, potatoe farmers in Idaho, or textile factory workers in Haiti,  because they don't realize that that is who they in fact are.  They don't write these essays with the knowledge that more than $17 billion dollars are spent each year on advertising to them because they (through their parents) will spend more than 10 times that amount each year.  They certainly don't write with the recognition that their very education is a tremendous privilege, affordable to them only by the chance nature of their geographical moorings, a rare moment in global history, and the values of their culture.   American kids are powerful.  More powerful than most nations.  What will they do with all their power?  Especially if they don't know they have it?

I recently interviewed a Haitian orphanage director who pointed out something that is true about the Apparent Project but I'd never really thought about.  He said that without work and opportunity many Haitian parents feel that they do not have the responsibility to care for their children.  He said there is a phrase common in Creole, something roughly equivalent to, "Put the pedal to the metal and don't look back", that comes into play when a mom or dad finds no recourse other than to leave their child in the care of an orphanage.  Something so painful must be done with a perspective of inevitability and with a resolve to not be guilted by the loss in the future because it was simply what had to be done.  But, he said, when somebody has a job, they know that their means and income obligate them to take care of their own children's needs. This, he said, is why the birth rate drops for employed Haitians.  In other words, when they are aware of their power, people are also aware of their responsibility. Sometimes this power is as simple as a day of training in how to roll a paper bead.

It is easy from here to see that consumers' desire to get a good deal can not happen without somebody getting less pay for their work (unless the item's quality is changed).  Your 6 dollar Walmart shirt may have meant that somebody in the developing world was paid 28 cents for their labor, and that the net result of them never getting quite enough on their paycheck has been that they have given their child up to an orphanage.  Your good deal has a high price.  So is the answer to boycott Walmart?  If the factory gets shut down, will less kids go to orphanages? Raising an item's cost doesn't necessitate that the ultimate employer will pay a livable wage to the factory worker, either.  These are things that are healed only by bedrock philosophical changes, conversion experiences, or heart shifts in those with power from the factory worker on up to the CEO.  Education can accomplish this too.  Sometimes a CEO just needs to get to know their factory workers instead of believing a politician who wants to see national revenue increase and says "yes our country's minimum wage is sufficient for your factory workers to live comfortable lives."  Something has to change, but it is no less weighty for any of us.  We all have power and choices to make.  The knowledge that your low price has a high cost is a form of power, and that power ought to make you feel responsible to do your best to figure out how to influence change about these kinds of things.  It does for me.  Unfortunately, Americans tend to think of their power only in terms of their dollars, so where their dollar has been powerful in creating a deal for them, it has caused problems that are again addressed by dollars... like paying some company to erase your energy footprint by planting trees, or by rescuing the orphaned child by purchasing them.



What will you do with all of your power?

On an Apparent Project paper bead bracelet, the cost difference between Haiti's minimum wage (which is barely livable) and double that (which is livable) is only 20 cents per bracelet if an artisan produces at the average speed.  So the cost to the consumer is relatively low in order for a Haitian to double their income.   Is 20 cents more on a bracelet too much to ask to know that you are not separating a family from their child?  We choose to pay more, knowing that theoretically this may make us less competitive, which, hypothetically, might reduce our sales, and possibly make us unable to employ as many people.  That's if the only factors in business are economic.  We believe that if the truth is communicated, people care more about other people than they do about 20 cents.  The world's worths can not be reduced to a price tag.  Consumers value their relationships, their globe, their bodies, their faith, their safety, their environment, their hobbies, their communities, their memories... so many more things than just their money.  There is so much more to life than the bottom line.... there is what we will do with all of our power.

Apparent Project in the U.S.A.

The Apparent Project has not only created jobs in Haiti but also in the U.S.  This is a great blog by Cami Franklin about our wonderful team in the U.S. and the work they do to keep all of our Haitian artisan friends going.  Thanks Cami for a great blog!  Thanks Marilyn and team for all the hard work you do!
Click here:

http://thefranklinupdate.blogspot.com/2012/03/apparent-project-stateside.html

A note from Shelley

So much has been going on that I don't have time to blog.
So much has been going on that I need to make time to blog.

This is the dance that I dance. Trying to keep room for the things that keep us connected, keep us known, keep people excited about amazing people changing their lives... and yet, while I am in the thick of it, I rarely have time to stop and reflect and share.

I took a four hour nap today from 5pm until 9pm, which is why, right nw at 1am in the morning I have a small space to blog.
Ember is sacked out on the couch, Corrigan just accidently drowned his turtle, TLC (yes we now have satellite television!!!) is playing a special on conjoined twins, a burning smell keeps wafting by as Corrigan is cermoniously burying his turtle- I think.
I keep thinking about what the most important thing to convey to people is about what is going on here.
I spent about three of the last four hours working on payroll. The list keeps getting longer and longer. With every mathematical calculation, my mind wanders to thoughts of children eating, moms coming home with their first paychecks ever, dads feeling the dignity of providing for their families. I cheer in my heart the more we have to pay them. I get to see what you don't see. I get to see their lives change. I get to see them ask me everyday if I might have more work for them- a huge step up from the begging that I constantly struggled with a year ago.

Many people continue to ask me: "How can we help?".... well here it is.. my dream sheet on how to help us help people work:

1. Keep sending cereal boxes. Rather than write a check in donation, get your community involved, recycle, and give the much needed materials that our artisans need to continue working. Our favorite box colors: Blue, Pink, Purple... go ahead.. indulge in Rice Krispies... its for a good cause! Check out this link for how! (If I mistyped, google it)
http://thefranklinupdate.blogspot.com/2011/02/cereal-boxes-shipping-details.html?m=1

2. Have a party! Seriously. We are in that limbo between aid and sustainability. We are always working towards not needing charity to sell our products, but for right now, we need YOU. If a person in the US has a jewelry party, it cuts out the markup of wholesale to retail and the artisans get so much more money per piece they sell than they ever get from any high end retail store order. Please do it! And then do it again. You are a lifeline to these men and women working so hard! Do you know that our party sales were 80% of our artisans income last year (all of our high end buyers - Gap, Donna, etc... only amounted to 20% combined). We are so thankful to the faithful army of mothers who are helping us keep kids out of orphanages and with their parents! From the bottom of my heart! Thank you!

3. Mommy bloggers Unite! In order to promote our jewelry sales, I am looking for some well followed mommy bloggers to write about what we are doing. "As seen on Oprah", carried by Donna Karan, the Gap, Disney, etc..... APPARENT PROJECT jewelry is changing lives in Haiti. Enabling mothers to keep and raise their children with dignity- sending them to school and feeding them everyday. Seriously, how could a mom not want to help another mother out like this. If you know a mommy blogger- tie her to her computer until she blogs about us. Thank you.

4. Come and See: We are toying with the idea of "come and see" trips to Haiti. We would love to introduce you to our artisans, show you a beautiful side of Haiti, take you to the beach, and also let you see the devestation that Haiti is still reeling from. We would love your feed back on whether or not your church, group, or family would like this kind week.

5. Send your creativity. I love when people send me creative ideas. I really love when people come and teach creative ideas. We are still looking to expand our ceramics program, do more paper making, boost our sewing, knitting, crochet program, work with wood, etc..etc.. If you are creative, come and spend a week in the best place on earth for the creative soul- watching creativity change people's lives!

6. Nanny Nanny Boo boo..... Corrigan is starting a film project this month that will last about a year. He is also overseeing the ceramics project. I am doing most everything else! We really need a single person (preferably female) to come hang out with our amazing four kids. If you know someone who would be stoked to live in Haiti for a time, and loves kids, loves reading to kids and helping with homework, please give them our info and tell them to send us a resume!

There are so many other things I would love to tell you about, but since I probably already lost you on number 2, I will stop for now.
Good night my friends. I will try to write more soon.
Shelley

ps: RIP turtle named Tortilla
pss: the conjoined twins wer successfully separated
psss:Ember is still asleep, but got up for a second and walked into the sliding glass door.

Death threats, getting this blog rolling again, and Oprah.

The votes are in!  According to the poll from our last blog you are far more interested in our recent brush with Haiti's criminal element than all of the other potential topics combined.  I would love to tell that story, but as I've hesitated for two months now, I think I should just move on.  The reason for the hesitation is that the people who have been threatening us have not been caught, and until about a week ago, the threats had been happening again.  I wouldn't want anything to be posted here that would jeapardize the efficacy of the investigation and apprehension of these guys.  So I will give a brief version only now, but I won't tell it all or delay the blog any further just to be able to tell this one story.

What I can say is that months ago we were told by an artisan that somebody was harassing him for money, threatening to kill him if he did not pay.  The amount was a lot for an average Haitian, but not nearly the kinds of amounts you normally would hear with these kinds of extortion and kidnapping efforts in Haiti.  The threats were also coming to another artisan at that time, but we didn't know about that until recently.  Since this was all happening through text messages, Shelley confronted the person through another text message and that's when he began threatening her for significantly more money.  The threats began getting more detailed and there were things about our family life involved in the threats that really could not have been known, and wouldn't have been important to know to anybody who was not fairly intimately connected to us... details about our adoption process, etc.  So we knew that whoever was threatening us had an informant or was himself very close to our family.  That's about as much as I think I can tell without getting more vague, since I don't want those threatening to see all our cards, so to speak.  But the police were able to catch the informant with very good proof that he was involved, and he is now in prison... sitting there without trial... and he's 17.  He was sponsored for school, making good money as an artisan... he had a lot to lose by being involved with this thing.  I cannot figure out why he would risk so much, except that either he is afraid of the people who put him up to it, and it was that fear that led him to do it in the first place, or it is something spiritual going on.  I know that he loves my family and that he didn't need the money that they were asking for to start with (he could make it with 2 weeks worth of work).  So something is really strange about his involvement, but he isn't talking and won't tell anything about the people he was involved with... he only told a lie (under torture) about who was involved that led to another young man being put in prison who is clearly innocent and very scared.  So now two minors are in Haitian prison without having had a trial, in cells that are about the size of a two stall public restroom, filled with about 100 people but have no toilets.  They throw their feces out the single window in the cell, and many of the prisoners are ill, some with cholera.

In the meantime, we are having trouble motivating anybody to really pursue this investigation.  The U.S. embassy will do nothing.  The Haitian police work slowly and inefficiently, and have not been trained well.  We're not sure when the end of this will come or how.... that's about all I can say about it for now.


Sorry, I wish this was more eloborately told, but I have other things to write about and needed to clear this expectation. 

 

http://www.oprah.com/common/omplayer_embed.html?article_id=35753

The Apparent Jewelry was on Oprah (her wrist, to be exact, and thus also on her new show).  That was cool.  And I (Corrigan) am starting a big film project about Haiti's children at risk... with some Hollywood help and a lot of great connections in Haiti.  More on that to come.  For now, I recommend reading Cami Franklin's blog about her visit here.  You'll get a good look into a day in the life at the Apparent Project.  She's writing almost every day of her visit, so make sure to read the other days.  It's fun to see our work through somebody else's eyes.

Until next time! 
Corrigan

Next blog: Your vote

It's been a while.  Sorry blog-stalkers.

The peanut butter blog led to more conversations, phone calls, and action than I could ever have imagined.  It has also, unfortunately, given Shelley and I reputations as people who care deeply about peanut butter.  I think the point was that we cared deeply about Haitians, but since peanut butter is a key ingredient in Reese's Cups, I guess I don't mind the affiliation too much.  I was very pleased to hear that some churches took the blog to heart enough that they were led to reevaluate some of their short term missions strategies and policies.  I was also glad that many people took seriously my recommendation (on facebook) to read "When Helping Hurts".

Also, as a result of the peanut butter blog, I received a kind letter from somebody at Feed My Starving Children regarding the efforts they make to not upset local economies and to create jobs in the nations they serve.  I sincerely applaud all these efforts, and the mere fact that this organization takes seriously the Biblical and ethical mandate to serve and care for the hungry.  Too few people are doing so.   Still, I would deeply urge solidarity with the poor (that means living near the people you serve and speaking their language, sharing their hurts, celebrating their victories, etc.) over a delivery model of missions & aid.  The dehumanizing poverty charades that are often performed by charity recipients trying to secure unsustainable aid can't easily endure under the arch of relationships and friendships that characterize a localized mission of solidarity. Visits, surveys, and interviews through hired translators will never give you the perspective gained by sharing life with the people you serve, and when the cultures are as disparate as those found in the U.S. and Haiti, there is more lost in translation (and shipping) than gained in assumptions about what the needs really are and how to help them.  I still feel thoroughly that I am a learner in this culture, that I make mistakes, misjudgments, and misunderstandings daily, despite the fact that I've poured a lot into knowing Haitians well and living with them. I can't imagine doing this based on the appearance of things rather than an intimate knowledge of people. 

I would also kick the dead horse that food is the most basic element of any economy, and if you upset that element by importing food bought from other farmers, you are harming the base economy of a nation: Even if you think you are freeing up their money for other enterprise, they're still dependent at the end of the day if your free food is eliminating their capacity to feed themselves... especially in this era of fuel crisis and inflation.  I would also repeat that shipping stuff that is already here to purchase, no matter your intentions, is a waste of money. Let me pull my foot out of Mr. Ed's carcass and move on, lest my reputation as Peanut Butter Nazi sticks (to the roof of your mouth?)

A lot has happened in our lives since the last blog. Each of the following stories deserves a full report, and I wish we would have had time to write these blogs as these things happened... but we really don't have time.  That's why we're putting it to the vote.  Which of these following Apparent Project stories do you want to hear?  Read the descriptions and vote for your favorite below:


1. Presidential, Presidential, Presidential, Presidential! (visit!): Former President Bill Clinton visited the Apparent Project house and then a couple weeks later Shelley attended the Clinton Global Intitiative meeting in New York and met a bunch of beautiful and famous people who are interested in helping Haiti.

2.  Dirty Deeds: We received death threats (for money) for three weeks which led Shelley to a long and deeply human phone conversation with her prospective killer... then led us briefly into hiding and ultimately led to the arrest of one of our nearest and dearest artisans... who now sits in the National Penitentary...

3.  Twisted Cyster: Our great new intern, Sophie Wiseman-Floyd arrived, began training people in super cool recycled glass/wire wrap jewelry, then suddenly fell ill because of a ruptured abdominal cyst, spent some time in a couple Haitian hospitals, and then went to the states to recover and is now back with us.

4.  Tragic Death and Dominoes: 
Makencia, a jewelry maker who has lived in our artisans' house and gave birth to two beautiful baby girls (whom Shelley named), lost one of these precious twins to a respiratory illness in her tent in Clerville.  Shelley and I, while grieving with Makencia and Serlo (papa) also got a window into how Haitians cope (or don't) with loss.

5.  Business is Beautiful: Christmas artisan sales have been great, more people are discovering the fun an easy way to help Haitians through hosting jewelry parties, and retail venues in Hati and abroad continue to open up, with potential contracts in the works with Macy's and The Bay, as well as our continued work with Donna Karan.  Jewelry designer Chan Luu came by to look at our beads as well.

 6. Apparently Viral: This has been a period of a lot of media exposure for the Apparent Project.  It started when the Apparent Project story was alluded to by Donna Karan on CNN's Piers Morgan show. Since then we can barely keep up with the media coverage.  Shelley and the Apparent Project artisans were given thorough mention in the December issue of Vogue magazine (read the article starting at pg. 122), Maria Bello recently launched some Apparent Jewelry, Haiti's president posted a picture of Shelley on his facebook page, Haiti's largest newspaper, Le Nouvelist, honored Shelley on the front page, Magic Haiti, Haiti's best travel magazine (given to everybody who steps off a plane from the U.S.), posted a picture of Shelley in an article about artisan work, and is pursuing another interview, crosswalk.com interviewed Corrigan about the closure of a local orphanage, and we were given mention in some other great blogs and websites as well:
Making Meaning
Creative Call Cambodia
Stichting Timoun

7. The Whambulance:  We somehow manage to employ 180 people, serve as the only ambulance for most of our community, run food and supplies for our operations and get our children to school in a beat up 1999 Forerunner that has now lost its wheels more times than we can count on one hand.  Insert pity here.

8.  Insert Clay Pun Here:  On thanksgiving day this year, our first ever ceramics kiln was built from local materials with the assistance of Scotty Dillman and Sarah Jane Gray from the Grunewald Guild, a wonderful arts initiative from Leavenworth, Washington.

We are super excited for this ongoing partnership and for the production of local beads from local, non-imported materials, and the wide world of ceramics that is opening up to our artisans.  This is going to mean many more jobs for many more Haitians! We hope to have production begin in Cite Soleil in February, bringing much-needed jobs to families at risk in Haiti's most notorious slum.  The beads, by the way, are BEAUTIFUL!

Now it's time to vote!  Select the blog below that you most want to see us write!  Voting ends  December 15!

 

Quizzes by Quibblo.com | SnapApp Quiz Apps