Decorating Seven Women Elephants by Georgie B
May 28, 2012
Decorating Elephants for 'Seven Women' Charity
There has been a surprising chain of events happening in my creative world lately. They have been of the spontaneous sort – the times when your organisation fails and you opt for plan B, C or D, which in turn opens doors that you never knew were there! Sometimes I think these moments are what we call “lucky”. Other times you know deep down that there is someone looking out for you, the universe is helping you join the dots, and all of a sudden you’re making sense of what seemed senseless.
I have met a beautiful woman recently who has made such a positive impression on me. Her name is Stephanie Woollard and she is the founder of the charity Seven Women. I met Stephanie by default – through a friend of a friend and we randomly ended up finding ourselves on Brunswick St to the early hours of a otherwise uneventful friday night. This default meeting has blossomed into an opportunity to travel to Nepal, to learn about the inside workings of fair trade organisations, to have dinner with more “good people” and to decorate elephants! The whole situation makes me smile and I’m incredibly thankful that Steph and her works has entered my world.
Abit about Steph. She is a whole lot of fierce determination and courage. She became the founder of Seven Women four years ago after seeing a need to empower women with disabilities in Nepal. Nepalese women are often seen as second rate citizens and disabled women experience harsh discrimination as there is a belief that they are being punished in this life for having sinned in their previous life. Steph set up a Skills Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal to educate women in the traditional craft of felt making and knitting, giving them skills to be economically empowered. Funds have been raised from selling the crafts in Nepal and Australia with the vision of extending the Skills Center to include more participants and training. This project has grown from involving 7 women to now housing approximately 400 Nepalese women, and 2 men!
Wow! This story has some serious WOW factor! Needless to say I am delighted and blessed to have met Steph and get involved in her vision for Seven Women. My first project to help out is to decorate a toy elephant made by the Nepalese women to be auctioned at a fundraising event this week. That’s my type of crative! Hooray!
Here are some progress shots of my elephant. It has wings. It is gold and white and regal looking. It is embellished with the word “believe” – because this charity and its people has so much faith in what they’re doing that they are truly destined for success.
Sometimes it’s hard to see what is on the otherside of your determination or faith. This is an example of what can happen when one idea, your idea, takes flight and becomes the collective idea of many. It’s all down to believing, and spreading your wings.
