Highlights:
Today we continued working on cold connections with riveting. On Friday we made pendants with riveted pieces layered on top of each other, which taught the women the basics of riveting. Today we took it one step further riveted bangles!
We’re starting to see the different techniques from this program cycle coming together. For example, today’s project has three techniques from the class. We have stamped letters and words, stamped textures, and riveting- all in one bracelet!
You may be thinking, “Just three techniques?” but remember, they’ve only been doing this for a week and a half. After just four days of classes they’re already layering techniques together, which speaks to what incredible artisans the women are.
Today when I got into the prison, Elizabeth told me she was crying in her sleep last night. She had a dream that nobody came to the prison anymore and that we (Ruraq Maki and other organizations that support the women) abandoned her. She said she was crying in her dream and in her sleep.
This morning she was okay and gave me a big hug when she told me about the dream, but this dream demonstrates why we have to be consistent in our work here. Beyond consistency we need to amplify it because that’s how much it means to them to have people offering classes and activities.
Within the dream, there’s fear of being forgotten, fear of not being important enough to show up for, fear of being alone in the prison, and fear of not being able to continue personal growth and expansion, which is a lot of what these women are doing in these classes.
The process of learning a skill and learning how to do something is extremely important because that process teaches us that we’re capable. It teaches us that we have the agency to change something because we’re changing our knowledge set. It teaches us that we can acquire new skills. And learning something new is an accomplishment that boosts our confidence.
We need to continue to show up for the women and we need to continue to build more resources for them when we can’t be here. We are at a point where we, as an organization, are asking ourselves how we can show up for the women, even if we aren’t physically here. So that fear of Elizabeth’s, that nobody will come, that she’ll get left alone, that she’ll be forgotten, never happens.
We have a goal of hiring an in-country staff person, ideally a formerly incarcerated women, to run our program here so that we can continue offering classes, sales orders, and support to the women. If you’d like to see this goal happen, please make a donation! Resources are the number one obstacle to meeting this goal!