Bead for Life

Voice 1:
Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Liz Waid.

Voice 2:
And I'm Joshua Leo. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier to understand no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1:
In a house in Chicago, United States, a group of women sits looking at colorful jewellery. They put the jewellery on their necks and wrists. It is made of small, round, paper beads. One of the women talks about the people who made this jewellery. She tells the women that buying this jewellery helps poor families in Uganda. This is a bead party. It is part of the work of a very special organization. Today's Spotlight is on the group Bead for Life.

Voice 2:
Achan Grace sits working in her home in Mukono, Uganda. She smiles. She seems very far from the women in Chicago, but they are actually closely connected. Only a few years ago, Achan Grace was asking people on the streets for money. She did not have a job. She had no way to feed her five children. But then she met a woman from Bead for Life. The woman asked Achan Grace to work with her, making beads. People would wear these colorful beads around their necks and wrists. And Achan Grace would be paid for her work.

Voice 1:
Bead for Life started with four women. Torkin Wakefield, Ginny Jordan, and Devin Hibbard were walking down a street near the city of Kampala, Uganda. They saw a woman named Millie rolling pieces of paper to make beads. But the women learned that Millie had no place to sell her beads. She worked in a rock quarry breaking large rocks into smaller pieces. This was very hard work. And Millie only earned one dollar a day. So the women bought Millie's beads.

Voice 2:
When the women returned home, their friends liked Millie's beads very much. So the women got an idea. Torkin returned to Uganda. The other two women developed a way to sell beads. Torkin asked local Ugandan women to teach and attend bead-making classes. They developed different kinds of beads and improved their skills. And in 2004, the women started the organization Bead for Life.

Voice 1:
All around Kampala, women sit and roll old paper into small round beads. The women sell these beads to Bead for Life. Bead for Life then sells these beads to people in North America. And this money goes back to the women in Uganda.

Voice 2:
Before Bead for Life existed, no one was selling paper beads in Uganda. Women knew how to make them, but there were no places to sell them. Three years later, paper beads are everywhere. Stores and other aid groups are selling paper beads. Many poor women are finding a new way to make money for their families. Bead for Life helped to create a new business in Uganda!

Voice 1:
Bead for Life does more than buy beads. After a woman works making beads for six months, she is able to take more classes. She attends business classes. Bead for Life teaches the women about saving money, about getting loans, and how to run a successful business. Bead for Life wants these women to do more than make beads. It wants them to become business owners.

Voice 2:
When the women are finished with the class, they create business plans. They can also request business grants, or gifts of money to start a new business. 67 percent of the bead makers have started their own businesses. Bead for Life wants these business women to be able to support themselves without the help of any aid organization.

Voice 1:
But Bead for Life also works with people who do not make beads.