Tabitha Foundation Cambodia
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Newsletters

With our regular newsletters, we aim to keep you posted on all the interesting and important news and updates of our programs and various activities. Enjoy reading! 

May 4, 2009

            	

Dear friends and partners, This month is May – a month where we celebrate workers with May Day and we celebrate mums with Mothers Day. As a mum, I am so very blessed – a beautiful daughter that is a delight and who delights in life. I don’t worry very much about how to feed and clothe her, or how to educate her – how to enable her to experience all aspects of life – the good and the bad. I have choices in all aspects. As I said, I am so blessed.

But that is not true for so many mothers that surround me. So many whom have children that they love, children who must be fed and clothed, children who need shelter and education, children who need to experience life – both the good and the bad. 2 weeks ago we remembered the advent of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the subsequent genocide and isolation of Cambodia. I look at these mums and I cannot find one who has not lost the right to family, to growing up with choices, the right to live in a home, even the right to eat. All of them have lived lives that have shattered whatever normal life they should have enjoyed. So I count my blessings. This month of May, I hear all around me the pains of frustration and anger, the pains of not knowing what the future holds for so many of us because of the world wide financial crisis. This month of May, I look at the mums closest to me – those who weave our silks and sew our products - we have been affected by the troubles in Thailand and tourism and walk in customers have dropped to a trickle. All around us I hear of other mums who have lost their jobs as factories close and businesses go under. And I think to myself, how blessed am I – how do you and I bless others and I came up with an idea. In April the world celebrated Earth Day and I heard all about how plastic bags add to the problems of global warming. And I thought to myself, how we can be environmental warriors while at the same time enabling our mums to maintain their dignity and ability to provide for their families. The solution is a simple one – shopping bags made from silk organza – silk woven by 400 of our mums and sewn by another 100 of our mums. If each one of us – you and I - could sell 100 pieces to our friends and family, what an impact that would be. Silk organza is a natural product which is very biodegradable but which is also strong and lightweight – silk organza grocery bags would provide work for over 500 women – giving them the choices all of us mums would like to have. At $5.00 a bag – it’s a price that brings peace and security – dignity and worth.

What if all of us made that commitment? Perhaps as a school – as a project which enables women to live lives of dignity and to protect the environment – perhaps as a club or a church group – perhaps as a business - perhaps as individuals – what impact could we have? And so this month when we celebrate Mothers Day – I bring my mums before you. I am so blessed and I thank my God for His mercy in this. I thank each and every one of you that I can come to you with yet another request. Janne