Hand-made Crafts Sewn in Mongolia

Hey, I saw this in a google alert and it's about a friend of mine!

Here's the link to the article, with excerpts from the article below. :) Please pray for the women involved in the sewing project and also for Susan, who is home battling cancer. Thanks! ~skye

Susan sits in the living room of her Ault home surrounded by bags, runners, and other handcrafts made by [Ka.z.akh women in Mongolia]. Susan started the Altai Women’s Project to help create income for the women’s families. Traditionally the stitched patterns were used for wall hangings, but the Ault resident helped the [women] adapt the art to more portable items for tourists and to sell in the West. ERIC BELLAMY / ebellamy@greeleytribune.com

Ault [CO] woman helping half a world away
Christopher Ortiz, (Bio) cortiz@greeleytribune.com
April 23, 2008

Susan is not a homebody. Though she lives in the small town of Ault, her second home is half a world away in Mongolia. She works with women in remote villages in Mongolia, helping them sell their hand-crafted items on the Internet. And she is doing this while battling cancer. Susan, 63, first got involved with her project nine years ago when she was looking for philanthropy opportunities overseas."I was praying God would open something up for me to do something besides work," she said.

[After working there for some time], "I was thinking they don't need to learn English. They need to eat; they were starving," she said. The area she visited is so remote that there are no paved roads. The only way to reach the villages is either by plane or cross-country via a four-wheel drive vehicle."Most of the people there have not been outside the community," she said. She said she wanted to give women in the area a skill they could learn so they could earn an income. After spending three years teaching English, she worked with the Women's Federation of Mongolia to return to the country to help the women there learn a skill.

Through her visits, she taught the women how to embroider and sew [new products]. They learned how to... make handbags, purses and other items... Through a Web site, the women sell their goods to customers and shops all over the world. "These women have no other source of income," Susan said. "They get paid per piece, and some of them are making more than doctors."

The Ault library, 216 2nd St., will have on display some of the bags produced by the Mongolian women. The items are for sale. For more information, call (970) 834-1259. For more information about Altaicraft Co. and to see their catalog, go to http://www.altaicraft.com; items can be purchased from www.fiatcharities.org.