Good things come from coffee shops

This post's title is the moral of the story. Paul was in a coffee shop here in Uganda about six weeks ago and struck up a conversation with a man who turned out to be a fellow Pacific Northwesterner. This man's wife had started an organization called Bead for Life (www.beadforlife.org) which helps impoverished Ugandan women. Paul asked if they had room for volunteers, and that's how I ended up helping there twice a week. I've told some of you about it already, but I thought I'd explain how the organization works in a little more detail.

First, women are referred to us who are below a certain poverty threshold. Once accepted into our program, they are taught to make beads from paper and to string them into necklaces. This type of necklace is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. so many of you may have seen them. Every two weeks the women (divided into groups of about 50) come to the BFL office and sell us their necklaces. We then ship the necklaces to the U.S. where they are sold at home parties. The women are given half their money in cash and half is put into their savings account, which they can draw from at any time. The women are enrolled in this program for 18 months, after which they graduate. During their 18 months with us we teach them literacy and business skills, the goal of which is for them to open their own small business. So they don't sell beads to BFL for the rest of their lives: this is a jumping off point for them. They earn capital to begin their own business and may also be eligible for a loan from BFL. Many of the women open small fruit and vegetable stands or buy a plot of land to farm or raise animals on. It doesn't take much of a profit here to make a difference in people's lives.

My part in all this is small - I do data entry. I've spent most of my time so far entering data from exit interviews with the women into a spreadsheet. It has given me an overview of the impact the program makes. We ask the women things like, "Since you've started working with BFL, have you been able to buy a radio, bicycle, or mattress?" "Have you been able to make improvements to your home such as a metal roof or concrete floor?" Many of the women use the money they make to pay their children's school fees or to begin to support other family members (a typical use of income in Africa). One woman commented that the greatest improvement BFL has brought to her life is that she doesn't have to beg any more.

As a side note, I have an interesting commute to the job. It's across town, so it usually takes me a little over an hour using two boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis) and two matatus (14-passenger vans) each way. Sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, on the way home the matatu driver will drop us off before reaching the downtown taxi park where we normally get off. Yesterday he dropped us off in a part of town I was unfamiliar with. I couldn't see any landmarks, but I started walking in the direction I thought was right. After awhile I still couldn't see anything familiar and was starting to get frustrated and mildly panicked, so I called one of the EMI staff who has been here a long time. She was able to head me in the right direction based on a couple buildings I could see in the distance. It was the opposite of how I would have gone so I was glad I called her. Remember, very few streets are named, so everything has to be done by landmarks. One benefit of being lost was that I walked by blocks of used clothing stores. I'm thinking maybe when the girls come at Christmas if we're feeling adventuresome we can go down and shop.