The Start of our Bouquet

Just wanted to let you get a peek at the start of our "proddy flower brooches" that we hope to sell with the proceeds going to our Congo project. What do you think? Anyone interested in buying some let us know - we will be taking them on the road with us to various hook-ins, they are a "must have" for every women's fashion complement.

A Day of Learning - Proddy Flower Brooches

Don't you just love our model.....we were at Rhonda's home on Tuesday and we all participated in a day of doing Proddy Flower brooches. We had Gene Shepherd on the TV for our lessons and with all the wealth of rug hooking knowledge in our group, neophytes like me just "prodded" along. We had such a great day and once we have perfected the technique we are hoping to take our brooches on the road with us so that we can sell them for our Congo Project. There is never a shortage of laughter, sharing and food when we get together like this. As soon as we get a few together I will post a "bouquet" for all to see.

AC 360 Blog

I was having a little trouble sleeping the other night so I went up and turned on the TV and was watching Anderson Cooper 360. Ben Affleck was on sharing his experiences when he went to the DRC and is speaking out about what is going on. Now I am really awake so I went to my computer and knowing that they have a blog and that people can leave comments for all to see, I thought OK here I go, what do I have to lose. I just did a little blurp about our concerns about the women of the Congo and put in our blog address. All this at 3am in the morning.....but we are on there. Check out AC 360 blog. We have to be diligent about taking any possible advantage to get our project out there so that we can realize our dream of helping some of those unfortunate women in the Congo. When you listen to some of their stories, we too have to gain strength from these women and how they carry on despite what is happening to them and those around them.

Happy Valentine's Day to Lavender Wool

Yesterday Women Matters received a wonderful gesture from the ladies at Lavender Wool. I just had to share this with everyone. What a wonderful idea and thank you so much. Women Matters were supposed to meet last Tuesday for a day of hooking brooches but we came up against Mother Nature and you know when that happens sometimes we just don't win. As it turned out the freezing rain they were forecasting never happened but we had decided to cancel. We are together again on Monday and Tuesday of this coming week. Our generous donation of "valentines" wool will probably be used for our garden of flower brooches that we hope to churn out to raise money and awareness of the Women of the Congo.

By the way, did anyone see Ben Affleck on Anderson Cooper last night? It would appear that he has also decided to speak out about the atrocities happening in the Eastern Congo.

Happy Valentine's Day to all that read this, to the ladies at Lavender Wool and to the Women of the Congo....you are in our hearts.

Mimi Kashira's Letter to President Obama

I had mentioned in a previous about Mimi Kashira, a congolese woman, who came to speak to us at one of our meetings. Well I am including a letter that Mimi wrote to CBC (Canada Broadcasting) for Inaugauration Day. I guess the CBC was asking for these letters to be sent to President Obama - not sure if they actually were delivered but they were on the CBC Website. Here is a copy of her letter:

Dear President Obama, Congratulations. You are such an inspiration for billions around the world.
As you take the office tomorrow, I wish you success and strength from God to overcome all the challenges ahead.
However, when you see your two beautiful and precious daughters, please think of what parents like yourself have to endure every day in the Eastern Congo when they see they precious daughters being raped and their hopes evaporated.
Rape in the Congo has been another form of terrorism that needs to be dealt with. Women in the Congo have been crying out for help, please reach out to them by doing what you can to stop this ongoing forgotten war and rape against young girls and women. May justice be done and all the criminals put to justice. Please do not be indifferent to the suffering and cries of Congolese women like your predecessor.

May God bless you, your family and all America.

Thank you Mr. President.

Mimi Kashira,
Kingston, Ontario

Let us hope that President Obama did in fact get this letter. Mimi is in the process of raising funds for a school for Orphans in Goma. Mimi held a fundraiser recently in Kingston where she sang as well as many Queen's University students from different parts of the world. On March 8th Mimi is going to be speaking and showing the film "Blue Helmets - Peace & Dishonour" done by Montreal filmmaker/journalist, Raymonde Provencher.