| Successful fundraising event and auction |
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The travelling recipe bead necklace has begun its journey – a journey which actually started in Botswana where our first group of mothers carefully crafted each paper bead out of discarded recipe books before sending them on to Australia to be fashioned into this extraordinary necklace. Mothers for All is happy to announce that Robert and Merry Pearson of Narrabeen in Sydney won the inaugural auction in December and became its first custodians amidst a riot of drumming, dancing feasting and bead-making demonstrations.  As beloved recipes are passed down through families and to friends so this recipe bead necklace will be passed on, generating funds for Mothers for All. Businesses and private individuals are lining up to become future custodians in its journey around the world. If you would like to become a custodian please contact Susan via the Travelling Bead Blog or Mothers for All
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As this is such a special and unique project we are earmarking the funds raised by the travelling necklace for a mother who has earned the title of Mother of All Mothers. Elizabeth Mqela (below left), who is retired and lives in the impoverished township of Zwelethemba near Worcester in South Africa, has opened her small house and large heart to 98 orphans and vulnerable children of all ages, 35 of whom are receiving treatment for AIDS. Several children live with Elizabeth and the others come from child-headed households or households where the mothers are sick, absent or providing no parenting whatsoever. They come for breakfast and the young ones stay while their siblings go to school. After school the children receive another meal and then stay until darkness falls, delaying the moment they have to return to their unloving houses.   Money raised from the traveling necklace will be used to help these children directly with provisions and resources. It will also be used to train Elizabeth, the women who help her and the older orphans how to make the paper bead products so that they can earn money as well as gain skills, self-esteem and most importantly hope for a brighter future.
Included in Elizabeth’s large group of children are the 30 orphans that male prisoners from a nearby prison had ‘adopted’. They grew food and made clothes for them and, more importantly, loved them like their own. Elizabeth was able to take Mothers for All would also like to say a special thank you to Susan Storm and David Sutherland for creating the necklace as well as arranging this fundraising event with such a difference. |
these children once a month to visit their ‘fathers’ but the authorities have recently shut down this initiative called The Group of Hope, which was started by the prisoners themselves. For more information you can watch a short