Beads Everywhere

Last week’s Sistas Savve workshop was facilitated by June Maru, a women’s rights activist from Bougainville, Papua New Guinea with a passion for jewellery making. June taught the class how to make paper beads from old magazines, which are made by coiling strips of paper into different shapes and sizes. These are then varnished and made into necklaces, bracelets and earrings once they are dry. The class have since been getting very creative, with one woman using old newspaper to create black and grey striped beads, while others use paint to create brightly coloured beads. Everyone at the office is wearing our new beaded jewellery! 

June really enjoyed the workshop, writing that “it gave me so much encouragement to see their faces glow with the recognition that they could actually make money out of waste paper”. June is very involved in community projects around Honiara, and aims to give women the tools and confidence to advocate and lobby on issues that are important to them. 

Thanks June for sharing your amazing skills with us! Check out June Maru’s other jewellery here: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Island-Accessories/405584776150156

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Island-Jewels-n-Arts/9287155070

Isabella from White River making beads out of newspaper, while modelling her own earrings and necklace

Hanging the beads out to dry

June Maru showing the girls how to varnish the paper beads.

Funky, recycled magazine earrings, anyone? Sistas Savve hits Mud Alley Market

The Mud Alley Market in Honiara was a successful affair on Sunday. Jefflyna from Kofiloko sold baskets and bags made out of recycled plastic and Vero from MB4 sold necklaces and earrings made from recycled magazines. See you at the Mud Alley Market in Honiara next time!

Budding Bakers

Last week was a great time to be in the office! Every afternoon, we were treated to the smell of baking wafting through the YWCA, which caused some serious rumbling stomachs. This was because the White River Sistas Savve participants were learning how to do all things baking.

Through a workshop that was facilitated by Diane Alufurai, the women learnt how to read a basic recipe and how to use specific measurements correctly. Armed with this knowledge, they proceed to bake a variety of delicious cakes and sweet things – pineapple pie, custard, chocolate cake, lemon and coconut cake and even fruit cake. To top it all off, they spent a session learning how to decorate the finished cakes like professionals.

After all this hard work, it was finally time to share the cake with everyone, including the very hungry YWCA and Sistas Savve staff– yum!  

Learning to make basic pastry for the pineapple pie. 

The pineapple pies, just before they both got quickly eaten!

Chocolate cake with great icing decoration by the White River Sistas Savve participants

Sheila showing off her cake decorating skills

Famous in Honiara

Sistas Savve is getting even more publicity, with another article being run in today's Solomon Star. It discusses how the women learnt how to make the earrings at a Festival of Pacific Arts workshop, and are now selling them for income!

Getting Creative

We never cease to be amazed by the spirit of ‘know how’ and ‘can do’ that permeates Sistas Savve!

You may remember that, recently, some of our grads had a special workshop in weaving earrings: http://sistassavve.blogspot.com/2012/07/jewellery-making-workshop.html

One of these grads, Karen Malao, then went on to teach the coil weave technique to the current group of Sistas Savve women from White River. They had three productive workshops working with nylon string and plastic beads and they made many beautiful pairs of earrings.

That in itself would be a happy story but, wait, there’s more.

One day, White River participant, Weena Brechtefeld, was at home weaving earrings and got to thinking, ‘What other materials can I use to make these?’ She rummaged around and found some shells, dry pandanus leaves and buttons off an old shirt. Friends in her community said, ‘Why are you collecting all that rubbish?’ But Weena had had a brilliant idea – why buy materials when there’s so much to be had for free? All it takes is some initiative and creative thinking.

Take a look at Weena’s stunning earrings made from found materials in her community. And now she’s going to share her ‘know how’ with the other women in her Sistas Savve group. Thank you Weena!

Weena modelling her lovely earrings made from pandanus leaves and shells. 

Weena's earrings, made entirely from products she found around her home. 

Sistas Savve welcomes facilitator, Jocelyn Lai

Sistas Savve was lucky to have Jocelyn Lai facilitate two workshops last week. She taught the women from White River how to make both doormats and blouses. The mats are for scraping mud off outdoors and are made of recycled bottle tops. The blouses are in the breezy style of 'meri blouses' from the Pacific region.

Thank you, Jocelyn, for sharing your skills with humour and patience!

Sistas Savve brings some bling bling to Honiara

Sistas Savve featured in the Solomon Star yesterday! Here's an article about the workshops we had with Lisa from the Pacific Women's Weaving Circle.