What Can We Do about Congolese Women?

Watch this video: Excellent interview with Lisa Shannon, founder of Run for Congo Women, and author of A Thousand Sisters!

Crafting for a Cause

I am amazed by how many awesome opportunities are out there that I have somehow been unaware of.... My friend Linda gave me a book that is my new favorite thing: Craft Hope. There is even an entire website devoted to this idea. How have I not heard about this??

Here's a section from their "About" page:

Craft Hope is a love inspired project designed to share handmade crafts with those who need them.  It is our hope to combine our love for crafting and desire to help others into a project to make a difference around the world.

Jade Sims is the founder of Craft Hope.  She is the mother of three and spends her days running Craft Hope from her laptop and making a mess with her children Austin, Texas. You can contact her at jade@crafthope.com.

They have projects posted--the most recent collecting really simple, inexpensive items to make "birthing kits" for birth attendants to use in Haiti, where sanitation is always a problem, and babies die for lack of clean materials at their births. The deadline for that project was March 1, but I'm sure they will post another soon.

It is heartwarming to read the comments by people committing to assemble birthing kits. One woman said that guests at her niece's baby shower were going to assemble 25 kits. How cool is that?!

Here's a project I love: pillowcase dresses. Yup, dresses made of pillowcases. They're cute! As well as easy to make, and how cool for little girls who rarely have something pretty to wear. I think I might have to have a middle school Explore class make a bunch of these to send to my friends at Galilee School in Kenya...

So... Check them out! Click on the banner to the right, read the latest project, and see how you can participate!