Hey fans,
Recently, we have stayed at the NGO for 3 days and 2 nights. What we can say is that we have done another amazing thing that we like about “MIRACLE” project. We are having the opportunity not only to conduct the workshops, but also to work in famous NGOs (Non-governmental organizations), as we did last week. The name of NGO was “EHomeMakers”, who helps disadvantaged single parent women all over Malaysia to make eco-friendly product -“Eco baskets”. Each basket is hand-woven from used magazines by low-income mothers to support their families from their own homes.
It was an amazing experience for us to work with such an inspiring person like Ching Ching(the founder of EHomeMakers). Ching Ching was working in UN Egypt in the past, she had a master in Business Administration from a reputable university outside Malaysia, but she decided to come back to Malaysia because she wants to be a full time mother for her only child, Roman. People thought that she must be crazy because she just let all the things out of her hand, her career, her fancy apartment in Cairo, and her husband who leaves her for another woman. It was a pretty long and difficult time for her and her child, Roman, but she still move on and always strive for the life. She always encourages herself and also a lot of Malaysian women to be more independent even if they were a single parent or may be have disability kids.
When we stayed at her place, we helped Ching Ching and other volunteer to promote eco baskets through the internet and spread them all over the world with media. Micha was translating the website into German language; Mafuyu into Japan; Veronica and Nadia were working on updating the “EhomeMaker’s” website. As for me, I was doing the bar code of all products, creating a database in software program. So, this NGO provided us with accommodation and food, and there was another intern from USA, called Mariya, who helped us to get introduced into everything and assisted in implementation of our tasks. Ann, the other employee at Ehomemakers also helped us to figure out why their ecobaskets are really unique. As a handicraft, ecobaskets has a very artistic patterns and every baskets are different, because it was handmade!
In conclusion we would like to say that these three days showed me how the prosperous business can be eco-friendly and can help so many women in supporting their families. And it is also good to our environment because those baskets are made from unused magazines that have low carbon footprints. We also understood that doing “Eco baskets” is also one of the best ways of reusing and recycling. As the MIRACLE team, of course we were so excited to know more about EhomeMakers and ecobaskets, we hope that more Malaysian peoples give their attention to women development and environment like Ching Ching did.
The MIRACLE PROJECT TEAM - Feb To March 2011
Nadia, Mafuyu, Anara, Veronika, Michaela
