by WMU Communications

unnamed (1)(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) –  WorldCrafts has partnered with impoverished artisans from Myanmar to India to Guatemala to offer more than 80 new products this year. They are among more than 200 products featured in the fall/winter catalog that was released August 1.

“Adding new WorldCrafts products is so exciting when you know each one represents lives changed by the opportunity to earn an income with dignity and to hear the offer of everlasting life,” said Emily Swader, WorldCrafts representative.

WorldCrafts is also pleased to announce partnerships with seven new artisan groups:

  • Anadoule in Turkey provides opportunities for impoverished women to learn skills in handmade crafts and keep the Turkish culture alive.
  • Inle Clay in Myanmar enables artisans to learn the story behind the beautiful clay Nativities they create while earning money for health care and other needs.
  • Kenya Vision employs Maasai women who make traditional Maasai crafts out of seed beads. The women are all in arranged marriages and married between ages 10 and 14. They each have between three and five children. Their wages are used to pay school fees, buy food for their families, and take their children to doctors.
  • Light of Hope Learning Center in Bangladesh helps prevent girls from low-income families from potentially being trafficked and exploited. The center serves as a day shelter and provides girls with education, life skills, health care, and moral training. They are taught they are special and created by God, and have great potential for living a transformed life.
  • Tabitha Ministries in Guatemala employs eight artisans who use the money earned from products sold through WorldCrafts to purchase things like firewood and corn.
  • Wandee in Thailand employs six women artisans who create beautiful leather wallets as they rebuild their lives after leaving the sex industry.
  • White Rainbow Project shares the love of Jesus with the widows of India who 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.

Visit WorldCrafts.org to learn more about artisan groups, download the new catalog, see ideas for party themes, or to shop.

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