AACDP

Wooden figure bought in 2002

The African Artists’ Community Development Project is a non profit  based on Martha’s Vineyard, MA, that raises money for disabled children, orphans and women’s groups in Zambia with the sale of African crafts here in the States.

In  1999 I traveled through Zambia and bought a wood carving, met some honest young men and agreed to try to sell some of their crafts in the States.

Later, I decided to send the profits from the sales of their crafts back to a center for disabled children not far away from the artists’ village. Thus began the transformation from a tourist who looks at a foreign culture to a world community member who forges connections.

I visit Zambia every other year and now have connections with a women’s’ craft group in Lusaka. I have started a doll-making project with the mothers and grandmothers of the children at the Mama Bakhita Home for Disabled Children.

Crafts are a sustainable resource that is everywhere and if markets can be found or created, they can doubly impact a community in economic distress. They are calling this empowerment commerce and you don’t have to be a non-profit to do it, though I have taken that step.