Report on a Great Weekend

We had such a great weekend with the two conferences at the Vancouver Convention Centre on Friday and Saturday. We were an amazing team consisting of both of us and the three Eberle sisters. We were hoping for good sales by promoting education for the girls of Uganda,  by many conversations about Bead For Life and  to make good contacts for the future events.

We intended to emphasize the promotion of education for the girls of Uganda to make our sales and solicit donations.

And we had Great Sales and experienced  a spirit of generosity.

We made excellent contacts: a retreat center that wants to retail Bead for Life items in their small gift store, a Chinese tv cable company from Toronto that may follow up with a feature on BFL and we received two invitations to  f different conventions and to speak for 15 minutes at one of them

Our young women, two college students and a h.s. senior excelled in sales and sharing the story of the Bead for Life women of Uganda. At 5:45 p.m. Saturday, having worked since 8 a.m., they were still demonstrating how to roll beads from recycled paper as the first step to making a beautiful bracelet.  They are eager to do it again. They and Mary Jo were excellent in asking for donations for girls education from interested  people who were not going to buy jewelry on those occasions 

In hindsight what a brilliant decision to have them promoting Girls Education as an effective way of countering extreme poverty one bead at a time. How hard is it to turn down an encouragement to buy a Girls Education Bangle from such fine young women who are exemplary products of good educational opportunities.

We do it all for you, beautiful young people of Uganda, for your mothers and grandmothers.. 

http://www.beadforlife.org/

maryjo.dawe@gmail.com

   We will  be  at the CEC, February 14 and the One Conference, February 15  at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Our work at these events representing Bead For Life will emphasize eradicating extreme poverty one bead at a time through efforts to support  "Girls Education" in Uganda. We feature sales of necklaces, bracelets and earrings made beautiful by the Bead for Life women in Uganda, using the only resources available to them, recycled glossy paper. We also sell  organic Shea lotions, lip balm and soap made by the women in the war torn North of Uganda to support their farming efforts.

   This will be our third year as vendors at the CEC. Come to see our new lines of bracelets, necklaces and baskets. You will be impressed. If you do not want jewelry, make a donation to the girls education scholarship fund. The  best help for a village is to educate its young women.

$4 A Day

To send a girl to the best quality boarding school in Uganda it costs $1,000/year, which covers tuition, room and board and ALL related expenses. It pays for her uniform and necessary sanitary supplies for her to continue class everyday. What a worthwhile investment in an aspiring future leader! 

Our Girls Education program aims to educate and empower the next generation of Ugandan women. We know that each additional year of school boosts a girl’s future earnings by 15 – 25%. Our program pays school fees for girls living in Otuke and Iganga, the rural areas in which we work. Thirty additional students are added to our program each year. All are girls who finish primary school at the top of their classes, and whose families cannot afford to send them to secondary school. Without our sponsorship, most of them would continue working on their family farms and would be quickly married off.

With so many girls in need of education, choosing who to sponsor can be difficult. Recruiting girls in Northern Uganda is particularly challenging because the education system was disrupted by years of civil war; the quality of instruction is also often poor. We look for young women who are highly motivated to change their lives. They know that education is the key to rising out of poverty, and they have demonstrated their commitment to academics.  

Set for success

We believe boarding school is the best option for girls because it keeps them safe by eliminating long distance commuting, and it frees them from household duties. Boarding also allows girls to focus on their education, have electricity so they can study at night, and receive tutoring. We provide girls not only with tuition, but also school uniforms, a mattress, books, a broom, rolls of toilet paper, and a year’s supply of sanitary pads.

BeadforLife is committed to pay for the girls’ secondary education as long as they continue to excel in school. We are excited to see these girls receive the education they need and deserve to change their lives.