Good Bye Slums. Help 40 Uganda Women Build Homes.

I just got back from spending a week in Jinja, Uganda working directly with our women artisans who have produced several new craft items for holiday 2023!  November is an exciting time of year when we get to see how popular this year's new product ideas are at our holiday craft fair events we do here in the U.S. 

Income from their fair trade products are very important to the Jinja women as they and their small scale Uganda businesses continue to recover from the two year Covid pandemic. Unlike the U.S., there was no governmental help available to them during the pandemic. These product sales also help them build their savings back up so they have sufficient monies to put towards a home as part of our home building project.

Through the end of 2023, we will continue to use some of the funds raised from this project to help the women stabilize their businesses and help them be able to produce more varied products. We are happy to report that we purchased a used overlock (serger) type sewing machine in August with some of these funds. Several ladies have now learned how to use this machine and are able to make additional products which otherwise would not have been possible with only their regular manual sewing machines. One such product they are making using the overlock machine is a new product, unpaper towels.  

Thank you again for your contributions to this project to get our hard working women artisans into better, safer housing and truly changing their lives forever.

Links:

• Learn more on our web site
• See our work through photos

The summer is an exciting time of year for us. This is when we work with the Jinja women on new ideas for crafts they can make that we can buy from them and then sell back in the U.S. It's very important because these craft purchases by Outreach Uganda help provide important funding for the Jinja women to use to expand and stabilize their businesses as well as save to build a home. Having a stable and successful small businesses in Uganda is key to helping each woman eventually be able to afford her own home!

Together we can help build homes for these women! It's a combination of: 1. income from our bead and craft purchases 2. having stable businesses the women can do in Uganda all year long and 3. additional funding made possible through these project and other funding sources

Selling these craft product purchases back in the U.S. is always a delicate balance of having a good selection of old favorites combined with some new exciting items that our customers here have not seen before! Happy customers here buying more crafts means we can increase our purchases from the Jinja women so they earn more money!

We'll soon be traveling to Uganda so we can work in person with the Jinja women on these new ideas. Attached are a couple of photos from past years when the women are busily making paper beads to be used in many different jewelry and accessory projects. We look forward to our next report to you where we can update you on our new ideas for the 2023 holiday season.

Thank you for your support of this home building project!  If you know someone else, that would like to donate to help women with their home down payment or help with a small business loan, please forward this email to them. And visit our web site to see their beautiful crafts that we sell!

Links:

• See our work in photos
• See Crafts We Purchase from Jinja Artisans