Artisans

The men who create the leather products of Sema Leatherworks say that their partnership with WorldCrafts enables them to help their communities and the surrounding areas. These artisans are fully focused on serving in the kingdom. Through their fair-trade partnership with WorldCrafts, these artisans have lives filled with peace and hope. They are able to educate their children, provide housing for their families, and share food with their communities.

Starfish Project’s mission is to restore hope to exploited women in Asia. Through its holistic care programs, Starfish offers formerly exploited women the opportunity to heal their physical and emotional scars through vocational training, healthcare, shelter, counseling, and educational grants.

Since its inception, Starfish has employed over one hundred women and has served thousands of others through its community outreach services. Starfish Project serves women like Mae Lee, whose poverty-stricken mother sold her to traffickers when she was only 15. Mae Lee was enslaved in another country for six years. When she escaped she had no education, no opportunities, and no hope. Starfish Project offered her a new beginning by providing a sustainable income and an education. Mae Lee now sees the beauty of her world as she trains to become a professional photographer.  

WorldCrafts’ first artisan group, Thai Country Trim provides a safe haven for battered women to receive emotional and financial support. With this provision of living wages, hundreds of women throughout the Thailand are employed by the artisan group. All of Thai Country Trim’s employees have been able to put their children through college with their earnings. The women learn the joy of working with their hands as they heal from their histories of abuse. The artisans of Thai Country Trim share that the most important thing they have learned is that they are unconditionally and eternally loved by their Father.

The Lily House offers healing to women who have been sexually trafficked and those who are at risk of being trafficked. With high levels of poverty, illiteracy, and physical abuse, Dominican women are exceptionally vulnerable to traffickers.

The Lily House teaches the women teamwork, opportunity, faithfulness to quality, and commitment. Through their fair-trade enterprise, women are encouraged that there is hope. They have new light in their eyes because they now know they have value and talent and are worthy of love. As The Lily House artisans earn a living wage, they are able to purchase medicines, obtain a higher level of education, and provide for their children. These women are now able to think bigger and dream again.

The talent and tranquility of The Well artisans belie their astoundingly difficult backgrounds: one was sold into prostitution by her family as a small child; several were teenage bar workers; and another was a single mom with no resources. They have discovered their own innate talents through careful training in Thai arts, and The Well has given them a sense of hope and a positive vision for their futures. Today, these women have dreams of opening their own businesses; becoming doctors, nurses, lawyers, and teachers; and sending their children to school.

Sex trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry. Trafficked women feed a worldwide demand for sex slaves, prostitution, and pornography. Poverty and the fear of uncertain futures leave these women vulnerable to the lure of traffickers.

In the midst of this criminal world, The WellHouse fights human trafficking as it extends God’s grace and creates opportunities for restoration to exploited women. Here, trafficked victims enter a safe residential environment where they receive spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical support.

Living in fear of their ancestors, the Zulu people of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, continually slaughter cows, goats, and chickens as sacrifices. They even attribute any illness, death, or calamity as a mood of an ancestor’s spirit that requires a sacrifice to appease. But, the people involved in the artisan group Wezandla, meaning “hands” in Zulu, have the opportunity to break free from this slavery. Each item they bead secures a paycheck for their poor families and the hope of freedom from fear.

The White Rainbow Project is transforming lives by sharing love with the widows of India. It provides vocational training, food, and medical care to destitute widows in Vrindavan, India. Vrindavan, known as the City of Widows, is home at least 20,000 widows who have been abandoned by their families. White Rainbow Project is recycling hope for these widows by helping them create beautiful handmade products out of donated saris and old magazines. Recycling takes on a whole new meaning, as this is one of the only options widows have to support themselves. They have been told they have “bad karma” and are blamed for the death of their husband. They are shunned, exploited, and denied any sense of dignity. Earning their own money gives them freedom to choose their own destiny, many for the first time in their life.