Sunday, January 22, 2012
Global Bag Project - a Social Enterprise
An Ignite Excellence Foundation Special Presentation.
An update on past Foundation Scholarship recipient Mary Ogalo, now Kenya Project Manager for Global Bag Project in Nairobi Kenya.
The Global Bag Project is a US based non-profit social enterprise that donates the proceeds from the sales of reusable shopping bags in the developed world to microcredit ventures in the emerging world.
The aim of the Global Bag Project is to finance micro-credit loans which help local entrepreneurs support their families with small businesses, provide basic amenities and send their children to school. Micro-credit finance has a good reputation so far, with 96-98% of people repaying their loans weekly or monthly. Many workers of the project hail from the Kibera slum - one of the largest in Africa -- and are either HIV/AIDS positive and are still managing their jobs despite this. They are entitled to a fair wage and this allows them to provide for their families.
Global Bag Project | Global Bag Project Facebook
Visiting Global Bag Project
I spent a couple of weeks putting together a letter asking for travel funds for three of us who plan to visit the Global Bag Project, our work where a handful of Kenyan women are lifting themselves out of poverty by sewing lovely, artisan African bags. The project is at a crucial growth stage, and although I would like just to apply the travel funds toward their fabric purchases and their salaries, ten days spent together hugely encourages them, generates all kinds of product ideas and business plans, and keeps the stateside crew pumped for about six months!
Since my husband and I and our Global Bag Project Director have traveled to Africa about 11 times in the last five years, we have drained our personal resources and do need to look to friends to contribute to the travel fund.
You can imagine our wonder when a film project David and I had been talking about with another organization actually came through for the exact time we were planning to be in Kenya for a shoot!
This means our airfare, and half of our land fee, will be covered, and now all I have to do is raise land expense for two for the weeks we aren’t shooting!
When we teach people how to go on the God Hunt, we recommend they look for unusual evidences of God’s care. This certainly is an immediate example of that out of our personal experience. Not only do we love this kind of work since we were in the media industries for over 20 years and regret that we are not able to use our expertise in that field much, but the provision of the budget means is always a sign to us of God’s green light to involve ourselves in a project. When He doesn’t want us heading in certain directions, He just closes down the financial means!
With full and grateful hearts, we will be in pre-production planning on this film adventure for the next two months—grateful to be chosen. In addition, the funds will allow us to visit the Global Bag Project sewing sites, interact with our friends, and make joint plans for the future growth of the GBP development project.
Global Bag Project | Global Bag Project Facebook
Since my husband and I and our Global Bag Project Director have traveled to Africa about 11 times in the last five years, we have drained our personal resources and do need to look to friends to contribute to the travel fund.
You can imagine our wonder when a film project David and I had been talking about with another organization actually came through for the exact time we were planning to be in Kenya for a shoot!
This means our airfare, and half of our land fee, will be covered, and now all I have to do is raise land expense for two for the weeks we aren’t shooting!
When we teach people how to go on the God Hunt, we recommend they look for unusual evidences of God’s care. This certainly is an immediate example of that out of our personal experience. Not only do we love this kind of work since we were in the media industries for over 20 years and regret that we are not able to use our expertise in that field much, but the provision of the budget means is always a sign to us of God’s green light to involve ourselves in a project. When He doesn’t want us heading in certain directions, He just closes down the financial means!
With full and grateful hearts, we will be in pre-production planning on this film adventure for the next two months—grateful to be chosen. In addition, the funds will allow us to visit the Global Bag Project sewing sites, interact with our friends, and make joint plans for the future growth of the GBP development project.
Global Bag Project | Global Bag Project Facebook
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