BEADFORLIFE JOINS AIDS CONFERENCE IN MEXICO CITY

BeadforLife, a collaboration between the women of Uganda and women of North America, has announced that it will present a poster at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, the largest professional conference on HIV/AIDS.  BeadforLife will also participate in the Global Village, sharing beads and stories with conference attendees.

BeadforLife is a non-profit organization providing impoverished Ugandan women an opportunity to lift their families out of poverty by creating beaded jewelry with recycled paper. Many of the Beaders are HIV+ mothers or refugees, all of whom have been living in extreme poverty.

“We are committed to engaging in the fight against HIV, and will share our educational experience at the International AIDS conference” says Devin Hibbard, North America Director.

“In our work with impoverished HIV+ women, BeadforLife has seen that it is important to provide more than access to drugs,” says Hibbard. “We give HIV+ women the opportunity to earning a living, and the impact on their health and lives has been tremendous.”

This August, BeadforLife will celebrate its milestone of one million pieces of jewelry purchased from the women of Uganda. Since its inception in 2004, the project has been so successful that women who used to survive on a dollar a day now live in their own homes that they saved for and built themselves The revenue generation has doubled each year, rising from $500K in year one (2004) to $3.4 million in year three (2007).

BeadforLife.org has an array of beautiful bead jewelry for people who would like to purchase Fair Trade products and engage in global giving.

For more information on BeadforLife, please contact Devin Hibbard, North America Director, at: devin@beadforlife.org, or call 206-228-9819. Or, contact Amy Yanda-Lee at: 303-325-3105, amy@bohemepr.com.

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About BeadforLife: BeadforLife (www.beadforlife.org) is a collaboration of women in Uganda and women around the world.  Women in Uganda roll beautiful bead jewelry out of recycled paper and women worldwide sell the jewelry and educate themselves and others about extreme poverty.  The profits return to Uganda and fund health care, housing and business training initiatives.  BeadforLife is a 501(c)(3) organization.

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