Just a few words from me today, because I think the attached blog post says it all. My incredible friends at Crafter's Companion shared this story on their blog today, and I am printing it here because I was moved to tears by it. We are SO INCREDIBLY BLESSED, and we ALL - especially women - are connected in ways we never even thought possible. Want to be a part of this amazing project? See the bottom of the post for a link.
Have a great week everybody!
Hi everyone - Michelle here from customer services...
I've just had the most amazing email sent into the office today from lovely lady called Letitia Matthews who has been working with communities in rural Africa teaching them to craft.
I just felt that we had to share it with you...
Hi Michelle, Hope you are well.
I just wanted to share with you what a blessing your Crafter's Companion Tools have been to two rural community skills projects that I have the privilege of serving with in South Africa.
For the past year, I have had the joy of facilitating skills outreach programmes in two under-privileged rural communities: Murchison and Mahlabatini in KZN, South Africa. Members of these groups are women who face enormous challenges every day, not the least of which are unemployment, poverty, sickness and chronic hunger. In addition, women in rural communities often have not had the benefit of education, but bear the full weight of responsibility in caring and providing for their families.
For this reason, I have loved being part of this project and over the past 8 weeks, I have been especially excited about looking at basic recycling and techniques that can easily be used at home. Bearing in mind that many homes do not have the luxury of electricity, this has been a creative journey that has challenged me and caused a paradigm shift for many of the ladies in our groups. Included in some of our sessions, were making your own boxes, envelopes, tags, ribbons and embossing.
I am a long time fan of the crafter's companion tools and started with the basic box and envelope models and then upgraded to the Ultimate Pro. I donated my first one to the skills program and bring my own from home to help out, as one of our groups has 22 members and with only 3 hours per session, once a week at a remote venue, time is of the essence! So, although members are taught the basic skills without your tools, I find them a real blessing in helping to make sure everyone completes their projects during the session, and I thought you might like to see your products in action at the other end of the world‼
Many of the ladies would like to own their own boards, but for now they are thrilled at the chance to share when I can bring mine. It is my hope that the ladies will be able to use the practical craft skills they learn in our sessions to improve their lives and hopefully generate some income. 
Isn't this just an amazing story, and we were so thrilled to receive Letita's letter, that we have decided to donate some additional crafting supplies to her group for her to take out with her next time she is travelling to Africa.
I hope you can join myself and the team in congratulating her on what a fantastic job she is doing - we'll be sure to pass on any comments from the blog post to her.
If any of you reading this have been involved in charitable activities like this and want to share your story, we would love to hear from you! You can get in touch via the contact form on our website.
What a heart warming story. How wonderful that these ladies are finding the joy in papercrafting that so many women around the world do. I am pleased to see that Crafters Companion will be sending more supplies to these ladies!
Posted by: Susan | April 16, 2012 at 10:49 PM