Cheers. This month we are raising our wine glasses to toast education. Here’s how you can help. We have partnered with One Hope Wine and when you purchase using this link a portion of proceeds from the sale will benefit our schools.
For those of you that don’t know Hope for Hearts, is a 501c3 non-profit that funds schools in conflicted countries to move orphaned children from poverty to prosperity with training and education programs. The children and teens we work with have much gratitude towards life and their ability to create a self-sufficient future.
As co-founder of Hope For Hearts, I find much gratitude in serving our two Ugandan schools because education is a luxury and schools like ours are the only way to break the cycle of poverty and war. We not only provide education, we provide housing, food, therapeutic support, vocational training, and a loving heart. ❤️
I hope you join us for a fun opportunity with our One Hope Wines fundraiser to celebrate your gratitude for good wine and we’ll certainly be grateful for your support!
The day of love is around the corner and I am overwhelmed with joy. Life is precious, and for many women in Uganda beads are precious. That is because these beads change lives.
When you purchase beads from Hope for Hearts know the following:
We supported a women working to feed her family with the commission to make the beads. You purchasing the beads bring support to an orphaned child. Your purchase helps us carry out important therapeutic and education services for these orphaned children. In return, the children are not just dreaming of their future, they are mapping their future out. They strive to educate themselves up and out of poverty.
The beads are beautifully handcrafted direct from Uganda. These unique pieces are rolled out of recycled paper and created into fabulous fashionable earrings, necklaces, bracelets and more.
As valentine’s day approaches, may yours be filled with peace, love and beads.
On July 4, millions of American gather each year to commemorate the United States’ independence from England in 1776. This annual event celebrates our privilege of living in a society where we can elect leaders that align with our values and have the right to voice our opinions. While the U.S. still has quite an amount of work to be done before we can truly call ourselves equally free, countries like Uganda have massive strides to make… beginning with overall human rights.
So, what does freedom truly mean? Merriam Webster defines it as, “the quality or state of being free: such as the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.” While this is a general definition, the idea of freedom varies from country to country. But, when broken down, it always comes back to choice.
The ability to make your own choices is a privilege we often take for granted. For many around the world, they cannot do this either by law or circumstance, which is the case for the teens at St. Elizabeth Girls Academy.
With no educational background or support system (especially when orphaned), many of these girls were forced to turn to begging or prostitution to keep themselves alive. This is why our school takes theses girls in and provides a safe environment, therapeutic support, socialization and the chance to learn skills to support themselves. The foundation and tools we supply these girls with gives them the opportunity to take control of their lives and better their living conditions.
In Uganda, education equals freedom, which is unfortunate because typically only affluent residents can pursue one. Our mission is to empower girls through education so that they can break the cycle of not having the freedom of choice. We offer vocational training courses in fields where girls can support themselves such as sewing, cooking, hairdressing, embroidery, farming and more. We are able to do this through you, our generous donors. Together our work helps prevent future generations of girls ending up on the streets. We know because our work with Kankobe Children’s Home gives the younger girls in our care the chance to attend primary school and eventually university.
On the Fourth of July, you often hear people say “let freedom ring,” which is “a statement that the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should be spread across the Earth and allowed to flourish.” In the spirit Independence Day, we ask you to consider donating to Hope for Hearts so that we can continue freeing the teens at St. Elizabeth Girls Academy from a choiceless and dangerous life, and supporting the education needs of Kankobe Children’s Home.
With summer in full swing and many of us still social distancing, you may be building your summer reading list. No matter how long your list is, we encourage you to put at least one book focusing on female empowerment as it is a great way to understand the importance of building strong women. Though there are many books that revolve around this subject, we have created the list below to give you some inspiration.
At our schools, not only do we offer education and vocational training, we offer emotional support that empower the girls to take action and lead themselves out of poverty to their vision of prosperity in life.
Happy summer. Happy reading.
Love and Blessings Cristen Lyn
“I AM MALALA” By: Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb
Overview from Barnes and Noble
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.
On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.
Instead, Malala’s miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls’ education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person’s voice to inspire change in the world.
Photo Credit: Amazon
“Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” By: Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Overview from Amazon
From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.
They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.
Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.
Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.
“Becoming Michelle Obama” By: Michelle Obama
Overview from Target
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America–the first African American to serve in that role–she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her–from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it–in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations–and whose story inspires us to do the same.
“Educated by Tara Westover” By: Tara Westover
Overview from Amazon
Tara Westover was seventeen when she first set foot in a classroom. Instead of traditional lessons, she grew up learning how to stew herbs into medicine, scavenging in the family scrap yard and helping her family prepare for the apocalypse. She had no birth certificate and no medical records and had never been enrolled in school.
Westover’s mother proved a marvel at concocting folk remedies for many ailments. As Tara developed her own coping mechanisms, little by little, she started to realize that what her family was offering didn’t have to be her only education. Her first day of university was her first day in school—ever—and she would eventually win an esteemed fellowship from Cambridge and graduate with a PhD in intellectual history and political thought.
Want to give your loved one something truly special this Valentine’s Day? Our beads of hope necklaces are a unique, lovely statement piece that directly helps the women of Uganda.
These beads are made from recycled magazines that are then carefully strung together to create a one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly piece of art. They are handmade by the women of Uganda, and the proceeds from these necklaces go directly back to the community. Our beads of hope are another way we are trying to help build the community from within and help break the cycle of poverty.
The beads are called kambulagos, and they are a popular business venture for women of Africa, the Caribbean, and many other countries. We have purchased our beads directly from the woman of Uganda, and the proceeds of each necklace support both St. Elizabeth’s Academy and the Kankobe Children’s Home. Not only are these beads a wonderful gift, but they’ll also give your loved one a taste of Ugandan culture.
Valentine’s Day isn’t exclusively about romantic love, it’s also about the love you bring into a community and the world. The women and children we work with at Hope for Hearts have so much to give to the world, but it takes your support to help them share it. These beads of hope give the woman of Uganda the gift of a future.
