JOH JOH'S BLOG

November 3, 2009

Well it has been a very interesting year for the project and I know we have all learned a lot. For me, trying to overcome the cultural and language barriers has been a very interesting exercise. I am happy to say that we are achieving our goals of creating quality clothing for our customers in a compassionate, healing environment.

I travelled to Rwanda in July of this year to continue training the women and to evaluate the progress we have made. We spent the first week working on quality control and making sure our products are competitive with the Global market. We spent the following week drafting new patterns and making samples for our new line of Hospital scrubs. We are very pleased to have some exciting new products to offer. The women will now undergo training in Business Management from Helene Cyr, a volunteer with a wealth of knowledge to share in this field.

Many of us have experienced some setbacks this year with the state of the Global Economy and that has been true for our project as well. We are still waiting for our funding for 2009 to be released and have been unable to complete some of the goals we had hoped to accomplish for this past year, such as staging a Fashion Event in Kigali. We hope to continue with these plans in the New Year.

We are all extremely grateful for the support of our customers, volunteers and patrons and remain dedicated to the success of this project. For us, success means generating enough income, both locally and internationally, to sustain the 19 Widows in the sewing group and to be able to hire more women in the upcoming year.

We hope you will continue to show your support for these courageous women by purchasing our beautiful cotton pajamas over the Christmas season. Thank you!

.....