While our first craft-training projects are still in a piloting phase, many of the Selebi-Phikwe mothers are already earning a living from the sale of their exquisite paper bead jewellery. In fact, we cannot keep pace with the demand, but hope to soon offer it for sale on the website with the creation of more groups around Botswana and South Africa.

The initial workshops, run in Selebi-Phikwe and Serowe, have been so enjoyed by the mothers that they now regularly meet in each others' houses to make their beads together. They have benefitted from the social interaction, sharing their problems and the excitement of turning throwaway items into objects of beauty.

Some of our products include earrings, bracelets and necklaces made from scrap magazines and cardboard packaging and below you can see a selection of the jewellery proudly modelled by one of the mother's orphan granddaughters, Oratile (see Our Projects for more product information)

And while the mothers work on their beads, another of our mother's young charges becomes absorbed in the pile of magazines a Phikwe resident has just donated to the project. And the pile of beads, of all shapes sizes and colours, keeps growing.........