I picked up the mail at the gym and tore out Hilary Clinton' International Women's Day article. Women, she says, 'still comprise the majority of the world's poor, unfed and unschooled. They are still subjected to rape as a tactic of war and exploited by traffickers globally in a billion-dollar criminal business'
The photos I'm posting here are from my time in Uganda with my daughter last autumn. She's made friends with some women who live in a shanty town on the outskirts of Kampala. She's even stayed over with the one she's made special friends with, squashing in with children and chickens.
The women are refugees from the north, many of them either widows or victims of rape by soldiers and many of them, and their children, have AIDs. There are few men in the community. The women have been making a living cracking rocks for concrete
and making beautiful varnished paper bead necklaces. My daughter set up a charity to sell the necklaces in the UK so now the women can do less concrete-making and more sitting around making beads and stringing them into necklaces. they've been paying for some of their children to go to school and to have a bit more food so they can have the energy for school. If you want to contribute scrol down on the left to 'my charity'. All the money goes to the women. Well actually to the collective they've formed with the local arm of the charity so that the money gets thoughtfully spent between them.
It was magic going to visit them and all here in the west with worries about the credit crunch have much to learn from the level of positivity and joy these women muster. They sang us a thank you song about how they used to have to crack rocks all day and now they can do that less and instead make necklaces.
And they gave me, as the mother, a garland of necklaces.
Some I've kept and love to wear. Some I've given to friends and some we have added to the stock to sell because this is a long term project. It's a step towards a better life for these few women.
On a bigger scale, Hilary Clinton says: 'Supporting women is a high-yield investment, resulting in stronger economies, more vibrant civil societies, healthier communities and greater peace and stability.'
Too right!
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