Blessed hands is an empowerment, discipleship and mentorship -driven social enterprise of   THE SON INITIATIVE (TSI) that designs, produces and sells hand-woven home décor items made from natural fibers in Uganda aimed at providing a platform to single mothers to express culture through their talents by creating artistic impressions of outstanding beauty and stunning craft products in an attempt to develop their families, societies and communities around them.

MISSION. 

Our mission is to equip and empower mothers from single parent- headed and struggling families within the TSI program with life skills to improve their quality of life by bringing them together through a social enterprise, facilitating their growth; spiritually, socially and economically,  and connecting their artistry to the marketplace.  

ENPOWERMENT

The backbone of blessed hands is the recruited artisans.  The mothers are equipped with skills on leadership and involvement in social and economic responsibilities for their families, households and their communities.

MENTORSHIP AND DISCIPLESHIP

The core of blessed hands is to disciple and mentor mothers into the kind of mothers that are complete in Christ regardless of their circumstances. These include them accepting their situations and break the cycle hence be transformation agents in their localities as they are able to meet their needs and the needs of their families especially the ‘sons’

FAIR-TRADE PRINCIPLES

Livable wages paid, and the profits gained are used for social projects that benefit the artisans and their communities.

CELEBRATING OUR CULTURE

Blessed hands preserve cultural traditions and the local environment, because products are handmade, grasses and materials are locally cultivated, the fabrics are locally purchased from local markets

FOLLOW MARKET TRENDS

Market driven; based on market feasibility study, we will be designing, market and deliver high quality products.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

B.S provides avenues for the artisans to socially be inspired and involved in the well-being of the community. The vision of blessed hands is to open up different centers in the country and bring mothers together in this social enterprise and share skills, knowledge and experience as well as support and grow together.

SPARTIAL LOCATION

Blessed hands’ area of operation is in Kampala Uganda currently with one center at Agape Baptist church Ntinda, but the program in its older stages seeks to enlarge its area of operation to the various districts of Uganda; over fifty-six centers ought to be opened in the long run.

UGANDA

Uganda aka the pearl of Africa ever green and beautiful is located in the great lakes region of sub-Saharan Africa, among the East African nations.  • 89% of population below international poverty line of $1.25 USD per day. The annual income is less than $260 USD per year, or 71 cents per day.

Most Ugandans are farmers but working under unfair terms of trade and the Life expectancy is 45 years, about a third of the population are from single parent headed families, Most places are remote, lacking clean water, schools and basic health services, 1 in 5 die before reaching ten years; Most die from preventable diseases, such as malaria, diarrhea and respiratory infections.

BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT

The background to blessed hands has roots in TSI a mentorship program that seeks to raise up a generation of men that are complete in Christ. When the TSI was formed, there was need to empower mothers of these sons that are enrolled into this discipleship program, that as TSI meets the mentorship and discipleship needs for these Sons, there was need for the mother’s to be empowered economically in an attempt to give a holistic approach to the mentorship and discipleship program.

We are all aware of our economic systems and how they have impacted our lives. These economic systems have touched almost if not all our every aspect of life; our daily living is hugely impacted.

How have these economic systems affected our way of worshiping?

• There is a gap that has been created between the rich and the poor
• Poor standards of living because  of little or no incomes at all to meet the basic needs of an average individuals among so many others

The church today is trying, but perhaps we are using wrong avenues. We need to wake up.

This is where Blessed hands comes in handy to equip and empower mothers from single parent- headed and struggling families within the TSI program with life skills to improve their quality of life by bringing them together through a social enterprise, facilitating their growth; spiritually, socially and economically

The founder Pr Alex Luyuyo had been studying in Tanzania where he came across very nice crafts products in Arusha which were being made from Ngara Kagera region by an Ngo called women crafts, inspired by their story he reflecting back to the condition at his home country that if he did a similar program he would make a difference in Uganda. So upon return he found this wonderful program that needed an empowerment program to be added to its program so as to have an enriching holistic approach to raising up a generation of men of virtue.

WHY

We do empower women because they are the crucial change makers who improve life for their families & communities. But also they spend more time with these sons so empowering a mother is empowering a community, a nation and the whole world.

Research shows that women are the change makers. When women and girls earn money, they invest 90% in their families, compared to 30-40% for men. When women have direct control over income, they tend to spend it on the family, particularly on the “nutritional security” of more vulnerable family members.

Women are the ones who can offer the most effective solutions for poverty reduction. However, they face many challenges:

• Women perform 66% of the world’s work, produce 50% of the food, but earn only 10% of the income and own 1% of the property.

• 70% of the world’s 1.3 billion people living on less than $1 a day are women or girls.
• Women work longer hours for less pay and in worse jobs than men in every country in the world. If doing the same work, women make roughly two-thirds what a man would make.

THROUGH BLESSED HANDS

• Raising child nutrition levels will be achieved
• Improved distribution and production of food, shall be enhanced
• Enhanced the living conditions of rural, poor, and vulnerable populations

WHO IS INVOLVED

• Currently blessed hands works with churches as a resource to provide mentors; men of exemplary lives and achievements: both the clergy and laity but also a resource for recruits the mothers and sons.
• The TSI, the Son initiative provides oversees the Blessed hands team and program
• BS Team; the BS team provides leadership and administration to the daily running of program

ARTISTSANS

Blessed hands seeks to change the way that economically un privileged women can do business, that despite living in one of the poorest parts of the world, are rising above poverty, raising stronger families, stimulating their local economies and inspiring the world around them.

Malnutrition, AIDS, illiteracy, and domestic violence, lack of confidence to speak-out are some of the challenges faced by our artisans and their families.  

WHAT NEEDS BLESSED HANDS SEEKS TO MEET

Income: The majorities of artisans in Blessed hands are expected to engage in other small business activities, and blessed hands being a source of income.

Nutrition:  Blessed hands seek to help artisans at least afford to consume two meals per day.

Animal Ownership: The average artisan household in the Blessed hands should be able to own animals for meat and milk. Increased animal ownership provides both economic and health benefits for artisans.

Clothing: because of earned incomes, the artisans should be able to afford basic clothes for their families and them

Medical issues: The other target goal of blessed hands is to increase access to health facilities to the mothers and be in position to meet the health bills.

RAW MATERIALS AND WOVEN DESIGNS

Handmade in the hills of pearl of Africa, our products incorporate natural, indigenous materials to achieve beautiful yet functional designs. Skilled blessed hand artisans weave together sustainable fibers and vibrant Tanzanian fabrics to create all-purpose products that add an exotic flair to any home. These products provide their creators with an eco-friendly means of livelihood. Because our products are meticulously hand woven over a period of several days or weeks, each one carries with it the spirit of the creator who made it.

THE PROGRAM PHASES

INITIATION PHASE

Immediately the son initiative initiation program recruits Sons in the TSI program, their mothers are automatically enrolled into the program. They are initiated and right away put into groups (accountability groups) under the supervision of a Woman mentor. From here active mentorship starts which runs throughout the entire blessed hand program.

EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM

LOIS- EUNICE PROGRAM

In this program are a series of activities all aimed at mentoring and discipline recruited mothers into the fully equipped trustworthy empowered mothers ready, willing and able nurture their sons at home into responsible men in the society by instilling in them (the sons) the acquired godly-values from the program that would not only help the sons but also those that the sons come to interact with at home, school, church, the community and the whole country. The mothers are equipped with skills on leadership and involvement in social and economic responsibilities for their families, households and their communities.

The activities under this program are in four components; the Spiritual, social, physical and economical.

• Spiritual

Mothers are grouped into various accountability groups under the supervision of a TSI mentor; this is to enrich their spiritual needs: Bible literacy, Christian faith and responsibility, accountability and stewardship, Christian ethics and involvement in service and how they can be of positive influence to the Sons in the faith and instill in them Christian virtues.

• Social

The mothers are involved into socially inspired activities to enrich the community by first of all creating an awareness of the role of the mother in the society, involvement in community work and work camps, social gatherings where mothers will voice out their concerns as mothers and address sensitive issues that affect mothers in the society, share experiences through knowledge sharing, nature walks just to catch mothers-mothers and have fun.

• Economical

Mothers will be trained in making hand-woven home décor items made from natural fibers: baskets, breadbaskets, table mats, carriers among others! These beautiful items are traded fairly by the blessed hands management team which buys the décor from the mothers and sells the products to the buyers as determined by the Blessed Hands team. The mothers are also trained in the basic economic principles and business languages of Saving, Expenditure and investment; how they can wisely use the money earned from the selling of their products.

• Physical

The mothers are encouraged to take good care of their bodies, their sons’ bodies through proper access to their basic needs; which are food, clothing, shelter and leisure. The realized earnings should be enough to improve the feeding systems and patterns of the mothers and their sons (balanced diet) but also facilitate access to proper shelter, clothes. Also mothers are encouraged to keep their bodies in shape through joint work-outs, physical exercises and sports galas.

PRODUCT SPECIALIZATION

In this phase the mothers are evaluated in a test and demonstration exercise where mothers display excellence in crafts décor designing. This phase is very crucial for it serves as the benchmark to determine which mother has excelled in a particular product hence they can specialize in making that product, but also a test to tell who of the mothers have excelled to the level of providing leadership to the fellow mothers so that its easier classifying them into clusters; for example there are those that may excel in tablemats designing, others in bread baskets others in laundry baskets among others.

EMPOWERED PROGRAM

In this program the mothers that have gone through the empowerment program are now in place to get other women (those in the initiation level) to provide leadership roles to accountability groups, train the new recruits in designing the crafts and are each assigned to a group of new recruits to provide leadership but also exercise their acquired leadership and economic skills.

The empowered now provide leadership to the new recruits with the supervision of the TSI and Blessed Hands team. The aim is to create a chain of blessed hand teams all over the country