what i've been working on

it was really frustrating for me to watch an entire school year go by with some teachers not teaching an entire class. our vocational department has not had the money for supplies for this whole year. the teachers of those classes just don't teach; the students of those classes just sit around bored.

i got to thinking about things, and i have a lot of art supplies available for my students. i was able to teach my classes. but once my supplies run out, unless others donate more, that will be the end there too.

but we have so many students sitting around bored, why not use the supplies i have available to make things, sell them, raise money, buy supplies, make more things, sell more things, raise more money, etc?

so that's what we are doing. this last term i started my students on two main projects: earrings and stationery. the earrings are bottlecap earrings (like pictured above) and beaded earrings. stationery is notecards with drawings by the younger children.

for the first round, to get some good start-up supplies, i've mailed all of our products to america, where my family is helping me to sell them. when they have been sold, my mom is going to use all those profits toward new supplies and shipping to get them back to me. they should arrive with enough time left in this term for us to make a good amount of new stuff, which we will also sell and get more money for more supplies! eventually i want to find places in ghana where we can sell these items as well, so the school can continue this project past 2011 if they want.

for now, my focus is the jewelry and notecards, but if i can keep this going enough and get other teachers excited and involved, i want to branch out into batik cloth dyeing, leatherworks, tailoring, and maybe other things too!

but first things first: if you are interested in supporting this project or would like to purchase some beautiful earrings or notecards, please contact me and i will get you in touch with the right people!

thank you!