Mothers Creations: Beading Helping Women

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Here’s an amazing story of hope thanks to beading! Mothers Creations is an organization (part of the Mothers Programmes) which employs HIV positive new mothers in Africa. The program teaches them entrepreneurial skills, crafting skills and pays them a fair price for their labor. From the initial news story at Post-gazette.com:

The next hot trend in U.S. charity fashion may come out of this unlikely little workshop where a South African health organization called The Mothers’ Programmes is helping to sustain unemployed HIV-infected mothers and their babies. The U.S.-bankrolled endeavor recently launched Mothers Creations, a beading program for the infected women of this miles-long slum, where officials say the unemployment rate hovers at around 90 percent.

Churning out a variety of accessories, including cellphone pouches, bracelets, lanyards and condom carrying cases, Mothers Creations has netted more than two million rand in profits ($300,000) since it was started in November 2003, charity officials say. The money has enabled some of the 100 or so female workers to purchase homes.

The program is even attracting the attention of celebrities and important people from the United States such as Beyonce Knowles (she’s the smiling woman sorting through beads on the website), Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Kenneth Cole. In fact, this story from Medical News Today even explains what we can expect to see here soon:

Fashion designer Kenneth Cole has ordered more than 5,000 beaded lanyards and is negotiating with the project to produce beaded sandals. The cable channel Showtime bought about 1,000 lanyards for a recent event, and Church & Dwight’s Trojan division commissioned 500 condom-carrying cases featuring the brand logo in beads. Mothers Creations has netted more than $300,000 since it started, according to charity officials. The group sells cell phone covers — one of which takes three days to make — for about $20 each and lanyards for $12 each. Workers are paid in cash as soon as they complete an item (Wall Street Journal, 7/15).

And their work is really quite amazing. You can see some of their samples here and here!