Akola: Empowering women through jewelry-making - NRF News (press release) (blog)
During her first trip to Africa in 2004, Underwood met Sarah, a young Ugandan woman who had taken in and cared for 24 street children. “I was totally shaken out of my complacency,” she says, “and started working with Sarah to help empower her to care for the children.” Underwood spent the next five years talking to women in villages, trying to understand their real needs. “We learned from them that all they wanted was opportunity,” she says. “They just wanted a way to do it themselves. Not for us to do it for them.”
Making jewelry was easy to teach and transport across continents. As the business grew, Akola women learned to handle everything from making the beads to designing and assembling the jewelry, working in distribution centers and managing the international supply chain. “It’s the joy of my life,” Underwood says, “seeing these women recognize they’re so much more than they ever believed or knew.”
