Sunday, May 15, 2011

Necklace

I bought myself a pretty important piece of jewelery today.

We were visiting a church and during a time of coffee & visiting after the service, I noticed a lady pulling all this fantastic jewelery out of a basket & spreading it on a table. My biggest boy was instantly intrigued and finally I had to go check it out too. The colours were too hard to resist!

There were necklaces, earrings, bracelets & chokers all made from bits of paper, rolled up super tight to create beads which were then dipped in varnish & strung on wire. Beautiful!!

What was more pleasing to me though, was that these pieces were all made by hand by a group of women in Northern Uganda who are currently living in a camp for displaced refugees.

By working with scraps of paper & minimal supplies, these women are crafting this jewelery in order to generate some sort of income to support their families.

Anyone who has read my other blog at all knows my heart beats strong for social justice issues. Africa is a country torn apart by so much conflict. I won't get into the grips of that here - this is my light & fluffy blog to step away from the seriousness and laugh at life a bit because reality is sometimes a little hard to face.

I just wanted to share my beautiful necklace & what about it makes it so special.

While it was so hard to choose, I finally picked one that was filled with colour. I love that there is not one other necklace like it anywhere. I love that it was made by someone working hard to help make things better for her family.

I hope we're a bit alike that way.

P.S. For what it's worth, yes that is the actual necklace on my actual neck in the photo above. I shot below the face because as a self portrait, I couldn't come up with anything that didn't make me look entirely goofy.

3 comments:

  1. What a great idea! I love the necklace! Is there a link where others could buy a piece of jewelery? I would love to own something like that with a story that I could tell to others.

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  2. I will see what I can learn. The lady had a binder explaining the process, the people involved and photos. We were just visiting the church, but hope to go back. (I still owe money for the necklace! They were very trusting with allowing IOU's!)

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  3. The necklace looks beautiful and it is so great that you are supporting people who need it.

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