EDMONDS, Wash. — An international development effort launched by a noted credit union educator is establishing a retail outlet right here in the States.
Carol Schillios, a long-time credit union organizer, educator and activist launched the Fabric of Life Foundation in 2003 to help young women in Bamako, Mali, move from poverty, begging and prostitution to productive work, health and education.
The foundation also funds a credit union organizer in Zimbabwe and credit unions in Senegal and Vietnam. Schillios won a Herb Wegner memorial award from the National Credit Union Foundation in 2007 in recognition of her work around the world.
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The retail store, which is being offered to the foundation on very favorable terms from a supportive landlord, will carry the clothing and other items that the young women and girls make in their artisan businesses that were established with micro loans after graduation from the foundation's school.
The foundation's school, called the H??r?? j?? Center, or "happiness group" in the local language, opened in March 2005 as a skills training, education and marketing cooperative. Here, young girls from the streets learn skills to help them generate income and become micro-entrepreneurs, the foundation said.
Schillios reported that the school has graduated its first class and started on next classes as well. During the apprentice phase, each girl receives $20 a week stipend to provide for food, transportation and clothing. The six-day a week training program includes training in fabric cutting and sewing, fabric design, wax printing and tying, traditional dyeing, beading, jewelry making, and weaving. In addition the program includes training in health, family issues and literacy.
Schillios said the store will be organized as a cooperative within the constraints of a nonprofit tax law and will carry items from her foundation's cooperative as well as other cooperatives around the world.
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