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In the Media |
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In Rwanda and Zambia,
women make bracelets designed by activist
Mary Fisher.
Program featured in O, the Oprah Magazine. |
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 MAY
2007 - AIDS-affected
women in Africa were
earning desperately
needed
income by
handcrafting beaded
bracelets, with
training from
artist-activist Mary
Fisher and backing
from O, the Oprah
Magazine.
The O bracelet was a
special project of
O, the Oprah
Magazine,
launched in the
Style Section of its
May 2007 issue. In Rwanda
and Zambia, women
who are infected or
affected by HIV/AIDS
made intricately
beaded bracelets,
for sale exclusively
at Macys.com.
The limited-edition
bracelets were designed by Fisher, a United
Nations special representative who travels
the world advocating for those who share her
HIV-positive status, and who is best known
for her moving "A Whisper of AIDS" speech
given at the 1992
Republican National Convention. |
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 The bracelets – in three styles called
Strength, Hope and Beauty -- were priced from
$50 to $135. They were produced through
Fair Winds Trading, a company founded by
artist and social entrepreneur Willa Shalit
to develop markets for the handiwork of
artisans worldwide.
All partners in the O Bracelet venture --
Macy's, Fair Winds Trading, Fisher and O,
the Oprah Magazine -– were participating
without compensation so that 100% of the
profits went to the women of Africa.
"These bracelets are a labor of love for me,
and a lifeline for women in Rwanda and
Zambia who are infected and affected by
HIV/AIDS," says Fisher. "Typically, women in
these countries live on less than $1 a day.
But those who make these bracelets earn up
to $19 a day, which not only helps them
sustain themselves and their families, but
provides a source of pride and a sense of
hope." |
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| Through more than 15 years
of raising awareness with her speeches,
books and art, Mary Fisher developed a
particular concern for how HIV/AIDS affects
women and girls. "Everywhere I've traveled,"
she says, "I've seen women struggling to
sustain themselves and their families
against the huge burdens HIV/AIDS places on
them. Too often, these women were powerless
to prevent the sexual contact that brought
the virus into their lives in the first
place: They were raped or sexually abused,
or in a relationship where they were
faithful but their husband or partner was
not. Then, once infected, so many of these
women face stigma and ostracism in their
communities. They are rejected and even
abused by husbands and relatives, and lose
all means of support. With no money, they
can't send their children to school, or feed
them, or take the food they need with their
HIV medications." |
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 Fisher began
exploring ways to
give AIDS-affected
women a livelihood,
and thus a way to
provide for
themselves and their
children. She
started in Zambia,
where she has long
supported the
HIV/AIDS research
and treatment
programs at Lusaka's
Center for
Infectious Disease
Research in Zambia
(CIDRZ). She knew,
from visiting
CIDRZ's teeming
clinics and crowded
support groups, that
there would be no
shortage of
HIV-positive women
eager to work. The
key would be finding
a product the women
could make, with
skills they already
had or could learn;
and a way to sell
that product in the
United States, with
all profits returned
to the women.
In June 2006, Fisher ran
into her longtime acquaintance Willa Shalit
– and learned that Shalit was pursuing the
same kind of income-generation projects, for
women in Rwanda. A decade after the genocide
there, Shalit had founded
The Path to Peace, a project in which
once-warring Hutu and Tutsi artisans came
together to weave baskets, for sale in the
United States by Macy's. As Fisher now
recalls the fateful conversation, "I said to
Willa, 'What about women weaving baskets in
Zambia?' And she saw my handmade bracelets
on my arm and said, 'What about women in
Zambia and Rwanda making those?'" |
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| By fall 2006, Fisher was
touring Rwanda and Zambia, scouting
locations where women could gather and
sitting with small groups of them to
practice beading. Meanwhile, journalists at
O, the Oprah Magazine had been
preparing an article on the income
generation projects, and the O-shaped
bracelets inspired a plan: Why not offer a
limited edition, through the magazine,
called the O Bracelet? Late January found
Fisher in Rwanda, and her colleagues Penny
Morgan and Candy Barbag in Zambia, spending
14-hour days teaching women to fashion
thread and beads into the three intricate
designs the O editors had chosen. |
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 Fisher recalls
poignant scenes from
those days. In one
support group, after
fashioning strands
for the first two
bracelets, when the
women tried to curve
the strands to close
the circle, "beads
burst all over the
place – the women's
faces were
horrified!" Assuming
that the strands
snapped because the
beading threads had
been pulled too
tightly, Fisher
asked Rwandan
friends for "the
words to use" and
then went from
worker to worker,
giving gentle
guidance in the
women's native
Kinyarwandan
language.
In another support group,
when one woman's bracelet came out too long,
Fisher realized it was because she could not
count, to follow the number and pattern of
beads she was told to use. "She was so
embarrassed, she insisted on taking it apart
and doing it all over," Fisher recalls. "And
she said that with the money earned from her
bracelets, she would keep her daughters in
school so they'd never struggle as she had." |
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 Thanks to the diligence of
the Rwandan and Zambian workers, the
allotment of 4,500 O Bracelets arrived at
the U.S. warehouse with days to spare before
they went on sale at
Macys.com. Now, the women in several
support groups are eagerly working on
additional bracelets and samples for
Fisher's new designs.
Fisher marvels
at how the project
has given the women
"pride in
themselves, and real
hope. It also is
what community is
made of – together,
supporting and
working with each
other." Fisher says
the workers told her
they're deeply
grateful that U.S.
women will buy
something precisely
because it is made
by, and will
benefit,
AIDS-affected women
in Africa. "They
love that idea...
They so appreciate
that there are
people who care
about them and want
them to fight."
In the Media |
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