About 10 years ago, while living in Vancouver, I had my workspace in my dining room which faced the street. From the outside you could look in and see all the dolls in different stages of production. One day, I heard a knock on the door and my neighbor ,Heather, told me that she just HAD to see the dolls that she had been looking at while walking by for months and months. Her partner, Greg, used to be a Waldorf teacher and she had quite an affinity to this style of doll. Heather is one of those people just just love from when you meet them with a warm heart and a twinkle in her eye. As time went on she told me of their dream, to build a children’s village in Guatemala and they called it Project Somos. As a fun adventure we even made a doll, Lucy/Lucita for Heather and Greg to take along their journey’s back and forth to Guatemala – you can read them here (I can’t link them all but if you search Lucita you can find them!) I’ve been following her dream and am so happy to see it come to fruition and especially now as they have just taken in their first few families.
What I felt that was so beautiful is that Project Somos takes on families with widowed or single mothers. Over tea last week with Heather she shared some horrific stories of the poverty and abuse inflicted upon the women Project Somos is helping. So, Project Somos take the mothers and their children in – provide them a safe and loving space to live in, teach them nutrition, healthcare and skills. Instead of the mothers having to give up their children (Unicef has stated that 90% of orphaned children have one parent alive) the children are taken care of by their mothers. It’s amazing and beautiful and makes my heart swell.
Heather asked me if I could give her some dolls to give to the children at the village and of course I was beyond thrilled to do so. I also wanted to find a way to spread the story of Project Somos and help them out in some way. I had an idea that would bring together families and children from here to Guatemala via the dolls. I decided to do a fundraiser and we made 7 twin sets with one of the twins going to Guatemala with Heather early next week and the other twin to go to the winner of the auction. Heather will be posting pics of the twins in the new homes and it will be sweet to see the ‘lives’ of both sets of dolls unfold.
I will make this auction live on MONDAY. I just wanted to give you all the heads up about what is happening. And for many of my longtime follower/friends who know about Project Somos I thought you would like to hear an update. I’m just so proud of Heather and Greg – these two have really given their lives to this cause and to see it happen is such a thrilling event. After pouring their hearts and souls into this, their dream has come true.
Lots of love to you all – I’ll post the info all over when its up and running!
xo
C
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