Thanks to Kristin Goecke founder of Mason Metu, from Me to You, a website where you can find kid-friendly activities and recommendations from one mother to another, for featuring Beaded Hope founder Jennifer Davis as her June 2010 Woman to Watch.

Women to Watch 2010
KRISTIN GOECKE | MASON METU, FROM ME TO YOU
Monday, May 31, 2010

“Beaded Hope is a wonderful non-profit organization that provides education and employment to the women of Mamelodi, South Africa. Started by Jennifer Davis, Beaded Hope continues to grow and help more South African women to provide food, vitamins, medicine, and clothing for their families. Many of these families have been impacted by the devastating effects of HIV and AIDS. Not only is the beaded jewelry hand crafted and unique, but knowing that each purchase helps these women provide basic necessities for their families makes every purchase worthwhile.

You can read more about Beaded Hope on Associated Content (also written by Kristin).

For our Women to Watch page, I wanted to learn a little bit more about Jennifer and Beaded Hope. Here’s our Q&A…continue reading

Thanks to Cincy Chic for featuring Beaded Hope in their “Hometown Heroes – Inspiring People Around Town” issue as their “Fashion for a Cause” organization!

Fashion for a Cause
ELENI SNIDER | CINCY CHIC
Friday, May 28, 2010

A local non-profit organization sells products that are handmade by artists in Africa. Find out how a certain Cincinnati hero is accomplishing all of this and more. This local non-profit reaches across the Atlantic to touch and support women’s lives through fashion.

Beaded Hope offers South Africans the opportunity to work and earn their own income to sustain their life and battle HIV/AIDS at the same time. The African artists create beaded works that explore their imagination and help them gain the resources to improve their medical needs.

Jennifer Davis founded Beaded Hope in 2005 on the basis of helping struggling people in Africa. Women trained in beadwork make handmade crafts like jewelry, small gift items, Christmas ornaments and even apparel that are then sold in the United States. Davis turns to these specific women for her products to help them fight hunger, poverty in their communities and diseases like HIV and AIDS.

A $15 dollar purchase from Beaded Hope is equal to two days of food for one of the African artists, Davis says. Likewise, a $30 purchase pays for the cost of employing one of the artists for a day.

Inspired by a visit to South Africa with Davis, author Cathy Liggett channeled her experiences in her book entitled Beaded Hope that was released in March. The novel centers around three women from Ohio who travel on a mission trip to Africa and who meet an African woman with the idea of creating beaded work that can be taken back and sold in America.

You can purchase this book at many popular bookstores and online at Amazon.com. Liggett also is donating 20 percent of the proceeds from her book sales to the organization. So you can get a good read and help people out all at the same time

Along with being charitable, Beaded Hope jewelry and products also can add stylish taste to your wardrobe. For instance, the tribal colored and printed jewelry and the layering of the bracelets offer two huge fashion trends right now, Davis says. The more the merrier, right?

Davis is a true modern-day hero to the Cincinnati community as well as the community of women artists in South Africa that her organization helps out every day. And what does it mean to be a hero to her?

“To me, heroes are people who give selflessly of themselves to others. Most heroes are everyday people who grasp the opportunity to help someone in need ; a coach who looks for just the right words of encouragement, a neighbor who coordinates meals, a friend who stops what she’s doing to listen,” Davis says. “These, too, are heroes.”

Check out Cincy Chic here and learn about all of the Hometown Heroes here.

In honor of HIV Vaccine Awareness Day today, we are highlighting the need for a vaccine, and the continuing efforts of thousands of volunteers, community members, health professionals and scientists who work every day to find one that is safe and effective. To all those dedicated people, we want to say thank you!

A preventative HIV vaccine is a substance that teaches the body‚ immune system to recognize and protect itself against HIV. Vaccines currently under development are created from man-made materials that cannot cause HIV. This is unlike other vaccines, which uses a small amount of the disease to teach your body to be immune.

Supporters of the HIV vaccine hope for several outcomes of the research. The goals include preventing infection in most men and women living with HIV/AIDS; preparing a person‚ immune system to block continued infection and eliminate the HIV virus; and delaying or preventing the onset of AIDS.

The goal is to create a vaccine that is 100 percent effective in preventing infection in everyone, but even a partially effective vaccine will also make a great difference. Creating a partially effective vaccine will stop the disease in a portion of the population, thereby decreasing the number of people able to spread HIV to others.

There are two kinds of HIV vaccines currently being researched ‚ therapeutic and preventative. A preventative vaccine is given to HIV negative people. It’s designed to stop infection and control the spread of HIV. It does not cure AIDS. Scientists believe that much like current HIV/AIDS treatments, multiple vaccines will be needed to treat people already infected with HIV. A therapeutic vaccine is one that is researched for the treatment of people with HIV or AIDS.

There are three phases an HIV vaccine must go through before it can be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Phase I includes testing on a small number of healthy HIV negative people. During this phase, volunteers are given different amounts of the vaccine. Phase I can last between 12 and 18 months. Phase II can last up to two years, and includes hundreds of HIV negative volunteers who test the safety and immune responses of the vaccine. The final phase‚ Phase III‚ includes thousands of HIV negative volunteers and can last between three and four years.

An effective HIV vaccine is one of the best long-term solutions to stopping the epidemic spread of AIDS. The vaccine cannot be developed fast enough! Nearly 25 million people have died from AIDS worldwide. An estimated 40 million people are living with AIDS and approximately 14,000 people are infected every hour. Even more concerning, approximately 13 million children who are 15 years of age and younger have lost one or both parents to AIDS. This is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.

There is no cure for AIDS, so the continued push to find a vaccine is crucial. The availability of anti retro viral therapy can dramatically decrease AIDS related deaths; however, the regimen is complex and costly. Often it can have serious side effects on the patient‚ health. Finding a working HIV vaccine will save millions of lives, much like the polio vaccine did so many years ago. HIV Vaccine Awareness Day is today, May 18^th ‚ take time today to find out how you can help raise awareness in your community!

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Learn more: http://www.hhs.gov/aidsawarenessdays/days/vaccine/index.html

While in South Africa last January we had the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do a video the ladies of Beaded Hope. It was a simple experiment designed to capture the image and the voice of each artist and to see how they would respond to four simple questions:

1. What does “hope” mean to you?
2. How does HIV/AIDS impact your life?
3. What would you like people to know about you?
4. What do you know for sure about life?

Take a look at what Lydia had to say.

Read more of Lydia’s inspiring story here.

To see Lydia’s beadwork designs click here.

Beaded Hope author Cathy Liggett will hold a book signing next Saturday. You don’t want to miss the chance to get your book signed and hear a little bit of Cathy’s inspiring story.

Here are the details:

Where: Barnes & Noble Bookstore
Waterstone Boulevard off Fields Ertel
Cincinnati, OH
When: Saturday, March 27th
Time: 1:00-3:00pm

For more information you can check out Cathy’s website: www.CathyLiggett.com.

And don’t forget, Cathy is generously donating 20% of the proceeds from the sale of the book back to the Beaded Hope organization. So, grab a couple girlfriends and head out for a break, a cup of coffee and a good cause!

This is Lana and our worlds collided last week. Let me explain…

Lana (like banana) is a wife, a mother (of 5 kids!), home educator, voracious reader and prolific blogger. I met Lana recently after she wrote a review of Beaded Hope by Cathy Liggett. She loved the book. Actually, that’s putting it too mildly. She L.O.V.E.D the book (check out her full review here) and after she wrote her review she started tweeting about it. She tweeted so much that I had to send her a note and thank her for all the kudos that she was lavishing on Beaded Hope.

Then a few days later Lana decided to enter her blog in a contest for mom bloggers. Little Remedies is giving away a top prize of $1000 to the mom blogger who receives the most votes between now and April 26th.

But, here’s the thing, Lana has challenged all of her readers to vote for her blog to win the prize and, if she wins, she will donate half of the prize to Beaded Hope. Lana has decided to get involved in a way that makes perfect sense for her….how cool is that!

So, I think you ought to run on over to http://tinyurl.com/ye9r5ay and place a vote for ILoveMy5Kids. Seriously, get moving. And don’t forget that you can vote once a day between now and April 26th.

Then check out Lana’s blog at ILoveMy5Kids or follow her on twitter.

Thanks, Lana, for having such a big heart and for getting passionate!

Bono, Oprah, President Clinton, and Bill Gates are all well-known advocates for AIDS and/or Africa. All four of these public figures have used their position to increase awareness, raise money and, in some cases, trigger policy changes in support of their cause. But let’s be honest, most people don’t have the money, position, or power that these celebrities have. I know for sure that it’s not for me to solicit congress to appropriate additional funds for AIDS prevention abroad.

So, how can one regular person, like you or me, change the world?

Here are the 5 steps that I’ve come up with:

1. Get Passionate about something. Do you love animals? Is gardening your thing? Do you love helping the elderly? Have you lost a loved one to heart disease, diabetes, or lung cancer? Do kids, poverty, education or unemployment get you worked up? Everyone has something they’re passionate about.¬† What is it for you?

2. Get Shopping and raise money for your favorite charity. Admit it, you already love to shop and having something delivered right to your door is always fun. Well, now you can shop AND raise money for your favorite charity. It’s easy. Just go to Good Shop, pick your favorite charity and start shopping. Every time you shop at a participating online store your charity will earn up to 30% of your purchase. Totally easy and totally worthwhile.

3. Get Involved in whatever you’re passionate about. You don’t have to start a non-profit, write a book or solicit congress, there are organizations at the local, national and international level that you can get involved with. Go find one and volunteer, even if it’s just once a month. Need a little help finding an organization? GuideStar can help. Not quite ready to get involved with an organization? That’s okay. Look next door, does your neighbor need a meal or their lawn mowed? Get going.

4. Get Away and experience an entirely new environment by taking a mission trip. You don’t have to travel to South Africa to go on a mission trip; there are organizations that coordinate trips within the United States or to South America. A mission trip is a life-changing way to experience a new culture, see the world in a different way and get passionate about making a difference. Once place that you can get more information is Back2Back Ministries.

5. Get Together with your friends, family and even your children and get involved. It is an amazing thing when two (or more!) people get together, get passionate and get involved. Big things can happen.

In the end I believe that if I touch the life of one other person and make it just a bit better then I’ve changed the world for that person. So, I don’t have to be Bono, Oprah, Bill Clinton or Bill Gates to make a difference, I just have to be me.

Recently author Cathy Liggett was asked by More to Life, the online magazine for women, to talk about her journey writing the Beaded Hope novel. Below is an excerpt from her story.

Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives
by Cathy Liggett

A few weeks ago, following some record snowstorms, I woke up one morning to hear a strange sound coming from our entryway. As I turned on the light I detected the origin of the noise right away: a mini waterfall was pouring into our dining room.

After cleaning the inside mess, my husband and I moved outside to try to fix our ice-blocked gutters. Naturally, one thing led to another. By the time we finished, I was really irritated by the inconvenience of it all. I had big plans for my morning off from work‚ and now all that time was gone!

I grumped and whined, but then‚ I felt a tug on my heart. That tug was the thought of some extraordinary women half a world away in Mamelodi, South Africa….read more

Cathy Liggett, author of Beaded Hope, and Jennifer Davis, founder of the Beaded Hope organization, recently had the opportunity to sit down with Debba Haupert of Girlfriendology to discuss Beaded Hope, South Africa and, of course, friendships. If you didn’t get a chance to listen to this interview live on Blog Talk Radio you can still catch the podcast on the Girlfriendology website.

Thanks to Debba for being our first interview after the release of the book!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Beaded Hope Mission Trip Volunteer Authors Inspirational Novel

CINCINNATI ‚ March 4, 2010 ‚ Beaded Hope, an African non-profit organization based in Cincinnati, inspired one of its mission trip volunteers, author Cathy Liggett, to write a novel also called Beaded Hope, to be released by Tyndale House Publishers in March 2010.

The non-profit group Beaded Hope’s mission is to further the ability of South African women living with HIV/AIDS to earn income by using their age-old African beadwork craft traditions. Of all the nations in the world, South Africa has been devastated the most by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, with approximately 18 percent of the nation infected. Out of South Africa’s population, women bear the brunt of this disease. Among those ages 25-29, women are twice as likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS as men.

In addition, South Africans must meet the daily challenges of poverty. More than 60 percent of black South Africans live in poverty and half are unemployed. Beaded Hope founder, Jennifer Davis, set out to create an organization that could help fight these challenges in a number of ways: assisting the artisans of South Africa to earn income for their families by selling their handmade beaded jewelry to a worldwide market, raising African AIDS awareness as well as HIV/AIDS awareness in general, and getting the word out‚ telling the powerful and inspiring stories of people living with HIV/AIDS.

“It’s hard to imagine the impact that poverty or unemployment or a pandemic has on a community,” said Jennifer Davis. “But when you combine all three and witness first-hand what it’s like for women to live in such difficult conditions, it’s clear that you have to get involved.”

One of the people to hear those inspiring stories was novelist Cathy Liggett. After participating in a mission trip to South Africa with Beaded Hope and working with some of the women living with HIV/AIDS who craft artisan beaded jewelry, Liggett’s life and work were changed. Meeting the women made me realize that, yes, their situation is a far cry from my own,‚ states the author. ‚But aside from that, they are no different than I am. They are women who want nourishment and a sense of well-being for their families, and mothers who want a more hopeful life and future for their children.

Beaded Hope the novel follows the stories of three women who travel to South Africa on a mission trip, and discover the truly transformative and empowering nature of hope.

Author Cathy Liggett will donate a portion of the proceeds from her novel to the non-profit organization Beaded Hope.