African Artists Community Development Project - Buying crafts from African Artists to fund local African Children's Aid Organizations.

I am back from my Thanksgiving trip - its always been my favorite holiday! We visited my boyfriend's mother at her home on Martha's Vineyard, sort of around the corner where the Pilgrims learned how to survive from the Native Americans.

While we were there, Marsha Winsyrg, a friend of Ruth's, was showing a short documentary she and her daughter created for their organization AACDP - African Artists Community Development Project. They buy crafts from (women!) artists in Zambia, sell their crafts in the US, and then donate the money they make to an orphanage and a center for disabled children.

At the end of the film, Marsha said, more eloquently, that she thought her role in the US was to:
1) act as facilitators between all parties
2) to support AIDs R&D in the US
3)

I don't remember #3... Suffice it to say, she had a great sense of what was the right role for her and her organization, which allows them to support local ideas and projects. Further their solutions touch other global problems - transportation, AIDs, education, etc. - but they keep their solution realistically sized so that they don't create a systemic mess.