Journals

Simple ideas are making a change

By April 21, 2006September 8th, 2020No Comments

This week has given us new hope that our program is working and that our simple ideas are making a change.

Hundreds of volunteers have spent hundreds hours thinking of ways to help the women in our program make products that will be marketable in order to keep them earning a good living. We have designed candles, beach wraps, jewelry, wicker slippers, scented sachets, hand bags, Christmas decorations, clutch bags and of course Original Tsunami tent bags.

Our confidence has been renewed by our limited edition stock of 3300 Tsunami tenet bags being reduced. We received a generous order for 100 bags from the UN. They were having an international conference in Colombo and wanted to give a bag to each of the delegates to demonstrate a creative usage of the decommissioned tents.

On the run, this week as we arrived in Galle to meet the ladies that sat for hours cutting, washing, sterilizing and sewing the bags; I was proud to inform them that their product was deemed good enough for the United Nations and that their hours of work would be hand carried all over the world by 100 UN delegates. I still wonder if they totally understand what that means or even if they ever will, but the fact that the work they are doing is selling gives me hope that the future will bring them closer to our aim and their goal of self-sufficiency.

So, if you see a white, blue, yellow, grey or green bag with a big red label on it, please stop the person carrying it and say “You made a difference” and thank them on behalf of IMPAKTaid and the widows of Sri Lanka.

Pam Porodo

Pam Porodo

Founder

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