By Sarah Fisher | Administrative Director
Dear Friends,
We are thrilled to share the successes of our Upcycled Sails Project with you! This project takes used racing sails destined for the dump and gives them new life by upcycling them into fashionable bags and accessories. In order to create the bags, we are teaching Mariposa girls and mothers sewing skills that will provide them with a sustainable source of income and allow them to lift their families out of poverty. We pay the seamstresses to make the bags, sell the bags, and reinvest the profit into Mariposa’s environmental education programs.
To date we have trained two Mariposa graduates, Ana Iris and Rose Lourdes, to make the bags, and will soon be training three Mariposa mothers. These girls, along with the lead seamstress Mama Mason, have created several different bag sizes and began production. We have a huge shipping container full of sail material, which will allow them to make many, many bags. Even the scraps will be used, for stuffing pillows, so nothing will go to waste. Soon the bags will be available to purchase in Cabarete and online!
This entire program is based in the sewing room at the Mariposa Center for Girls that your donations helped to outfit with the machines and other equipment needed to make this project possible. Ana Iris says “For me the sewing project is extremely important because through this project I have learned to sew….and I earn money that allows me to do many things.” Rose Lourdes had this to say about the Upcycled Sails project: “Sewing is my passion, and through this project I learn something new every day.”
Your continued support makes it possible to provide job skills training programs at the Mariposa Center for Girls. These programs in turn make it possible for girls and women to lift their families out of the cycle of generational poverty. Thank you for helping to educate the world’s most powerful force for change!
With gratitude,
The girls, families, staff and volunteers at The Mariposa DR Foundation
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