Monday, March 15, 2010

An Open Door

Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to spend time at one of the embassies here in Kuwait. For those of you that have followed my journey, you might know that I have been trying for the past year to find ways to serve a specific community of women in Kuwait- runaway domestic helpers (maids and nannies) that have escaped from abusive situations and are seeking shelter in their country's embassy until their situation can be resolved. Some of them stay at the embassy for a few days, some of them for months. Many of them are in a sort of limbo, with all their documents (passports, visa, etc) being kept by their employer, and often with a pending police case (the employer can file a police case against them for running away). The politics of it aside, these are women caught in a sort of no-man's land...several hundred live in the building at any one time, waiting for the official word to either fly back to their own country, or get sent into a new employment situation. A couple of expat women here in Kuwait have started up a program for the girls, and I've had the privilege of joining them. We are teaching a training course on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and pairing that with skill learning so that when the women leave their current situation, they have the skills to start up their own business. Our focus has been on creating hand-made crafts that can be completed with minimal or no cost. One of the women who started this program came up with the idea of making knot rugs out of fabric (she has spent hours going around to tailors in the area asking for fabric donations). She went online and learned how to make a knot and taught the girls...and by the next week the girls were professionals! We can't obviously take several hundred girls in one course, so we have about 30 that speak good English and who were selected as leaders in their community. These incredible women have not only learned the skills, but have been teaching all the other girls living in the embassy! The end result has been incredible...in the past the girls just spent their time sitting around and waiting, waiting, waiting. Now, you can feel a level of energy and excitement when you walk in the door of the building. The leadership of the embassy even gave the girls a crafts room that is now filled with piles of fabric and girls working on making these rugs. This week we are celebrating the end of the course, and doing a big expo of all the stuff the girls have made (they also learned how to make jewelry from magazine paper, and purses from cut up jeans and other fabric). We will start selling the things they have made, and 100% of the profits will go back to the girls. Basically, the girls give us a list of everything they want (they want basic supplies like shampoo and deodorant and tote bags to travel back to their country)...and we buy it with the proceeds and bring it back to the girls at the embassy. It's been an incredible experience. Who would have known that after a year of trying, God would open the door for me to be involved in such an incredible opportunity! I'm excited and looking forward to starting up a new round of the course. At the same time, interacting with these women and hearing their stories weighs heavily on my soul...but right now, it's time to celebrate the cool things that God is doing and save my thoughts on all that for another time. Below are some pictures from our time at the embassy. Enjoy!




5 comments:

pickles14 said...

Amy,is this on a large or small scale? I mean, could someone buy these rugs overseas?

~Ashley

sarah said...

this is so awesome! thanks for sharing! what a neat opportunity you are a part of!!! Can I have one?

miakush said...

Ashley- right now this is a start-up thing. We just graduated our first class of girls tonight! I'll post more pics soon. The goal is to do this on a medium-scale here, but really to train the girls so that they can go create start-up businesses to earn income when they go back to the Philippines. I've mentioned a couple times the idea of going bigger scale (maybe connecting with Ten Thousand Villages or something- if you've heard of them)...but right now we're still just getting started. So we're not selling overseas yet! :-)

Sarah (and Ashley)...even though we're not selling overseas, it might work for me to buy a few and send a box to one of you with a few options!! The next round of rugs will be ready shortly before I leave for Ethiopia, so I'm sure we could work something out. It's so fun! Pics from tonight coming soon.

Anonymous said...

This is SOOOO cool Amy! I was just checking out http://www.kiva.org/ today - a couple of minutes n the site and I was about ready to loan every spare dollar I've got! But this is cooler in a way, since it's so small and specific...
Good on ye, girl!!!!
xoxo
Aunt Mary

donna kushner said...

Amy, I loved reading this and also seeing the rugs. I sent the link to the man in Ethiopia who is helping us with the work we will be doing there with young women. It is wonderful to see how God has opened the door for you and the other women, I am sure you are helping to make their lives more hopeful, and learning a lot along the way! love you!