A bracelet can be a powerful thing. The finishing touch to a fashionable look. A sparkly conversation starter. The memory of a gift received. That little something that some women can’t leave home without.
In the case of Same Sky, a bracelet is also a second chance at life. A renewal. A symbol of women lifting other women up — no matter how far apart their worlds may seem.
Same Sky bracelets, which began selling just in time for the 2009 holiday season, are hand-crocheted by HIV-positive women artisans in Rwanda — women who survived the genocide of 1994, and are working to overcome the traumatic after-effects of rape and unimaginable violence.
Each and every bracelet carries the signature of the woman who made it. And each and every bracelet sold helps lift one more life out of poverty and into financial freedom.
“No matter how much we complain in this country, we are all lucky,” says Same Sky founder Francine LeFrak, a Manhattan-based film producer and philanthropist who is also deeply involved with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. “I never forget how lucky I am.”
Her journey to founding Same Sky began nine years ago, when she produced the HBO film Shot Through The Heart, about the war in Bosnia. A film that won a Peabody Award. Through that film, she was introduced to the horrors of Rwanda and decided to find a way to empower women in that country while shedding light on the tragedy.
LeFrak thought she would do that by making a film. But when the film she envisioned fell apart, the idea for the bracelets emerged—spurred on by the work of Mary Fisher, an artist, author and speaker who travels the world advocating for those who share her HIV-positive status. It was Fisher who originally taught the women in Rwanda the crochet technique that is used in Same Sky bracelets today.
LeFrak then teamed up Gahaya Links, a Rwandan-based handicrafts center. With all proceeds from the sale of each $150 bracelet reinvested, Same Sky is able to pay women artisans a much higher wage than they could earn elsewhere, in addition to providing women transportation to and from work each day, and giving them a daily meal.
“It gives them dignity. It gives them a future,” LeFrak says.
It gives buyers a lift as well: “People want to know that they give gifts that help other people,” she notes, referring to the change in consumer habits as “an ethical shopping revolution.”
“The women who make the bracelets are like heroes,” she adds. “Can you imagine having a machete mark in your head?”
LeFrak was especially moved by a woman named Bridget whom she met over the summer, and who is now employed by Same Sky. “She was taken as a concubine by a Hutu general. Besides contracting HIV, she had a child with him. She was despondent. She was like a person who was sort of left behind in the world. The post-traumatic stress is so enormous,” she says. “Now? She has a future, and hope. Just to see her smile was enormous.”
“The fact that these women can go on and open a bank account, or start a business with their daughter; that they can wear a dress that someone who works in an office wears — these women are so positive. They give me courage to realize how fortunate and blessed I am every second of the day,” says LeFrak.
The hand-blown-glass beaded bracelets are available directly through Same Sky’s online store, and at select retailers in the U.S., including Zitomer and the Ana Tzarev Gallery in New York City.
To purchase a Same Sky bracelet, CLICK HERE.
Photos courtesy Same Sky