On August 15, Animals for Africa-Love Made Tangible will send three artists/educators to Africa to deliver over 200 lovingly hand-crafted stuffed animals made by citizens of the world for orphaned and vulnerable children in Malawi and Uganda.  During our four week stay, we will facilitate a variety of art education and artisan training programs with women, children and youth to seed economically empowering crafting cooperatives in impoverished communities.

Animals for Africa was born in Malawi in May, 2011 in response to the suffering and poverty I witnessed first hand while traveling with a group of wise women writers. As an artist/educator, I searched my soul for a creative way to respond to the heart-breaking stories of poverty, globalization and HIV/AIDS I heard and witnessed first hand on my journey.

One rainy afternoon, a few weeks into my trip, on a mountain in Livingstonia, I was moved to craft a little stuffed zebra doll for a 9 year-old orphaned girl I'd met named Witty.  I was haunted by Witty because she’d seemed so devastatingly sad and lonely. As I hand-stitched her name onto my little zebra creation, I realized I was infusing it with all the love and compassion I felt for her and all the other vulnerable women and children I'd met along the way.

My spontaneous “animal crafting” inspired my co-travelers as well, and soon they were not only creating their own animals to give to the orphaned children, we were detouring back to Tukombo Village to teach the women there how to make them - as a way to learn and practice practical craft-making skills. 

A few months after my return to the United States, I officially launched Animals for Africa-Love Made Tangible and since then, dozens of caring and compassionate citizens have happily hosted "Animal Art Parties," recruiting friends and raising funds to support the mission and vision. 

The original crafting cooperative in Tukombo has taken root and the women continue to meet weekly to make animals. Already, they have earned $350, a substantial amount considering that over 90% of Malawians live on less than $750 a year! With funds earned through their own creative efforts, the women were able to reinvest in more crafting materials for the cooperative, provide a bit more food for their own families and to purchase school uniforms for seven of the orphaned children in their village so they could attend primary school.  

With your support, we will be able to return to Malawi to develop and nurture the social enterprise we planted in Tukombo Village last May and to also seed several more crafting cooperatives through collaborations with the HALO Foundation and In Movement: Art for Social Change in Uganda. 

We have already receive a small grant from Art4Moore which will help pay for some crafting materials and lodging while in Africa for 4 weeks. We need to raise $15,000 more to cover plane tickets for three artist/educators to travel from San Francisco to Malawi, from Malawi to Uganda and from Uganda back to San Francisco.  We also need funds to cover ground transportation, meals and other travel related expenses.  Plus, we'd love to bring additional crafting supplies to leave for women and youth to continue developing their crafting cooperatives.

Additional donations will support the ongoing Animals for Africa mission-to economically empower people through creativity, connection and love by bringing citizens of the world together to create simple, folk-art inspired stuffed animals for vulnerable children in need and to seed sustainable social enterprises through artisan training.

We are  committed to fostering community and connection through grass-root crafting circles, art education, workshops and presentations with socially conscious collaborators and organizations, like CERI (The Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants), Soroptimists International and Kansas City Kansas Community College. 

Our long-range vision is to expand our artisan training and animal crafting campaigns to other countries and continents, to make more love tangible around the world.   

OTHER WAYS YOU CAN HELP:

If you can't donate money as love, you can stilll help in many other incredibly impactful ways! You can become an "ambassador" simply by helping us spread the word about our mission and vision!

Please repost our campaign on facebook or resend through email to your family, friends and colleagues! 

You can also host an "animal crafting party" and help us by recruiting your friends to make animals for orphans and raise donations to seed crafting cooperatives in the impoverished communties that care for these children.

You can donate fabric and other crafting materials, or, if you are a Bay Area local, you can donate your time- by helping us pack up and ship our animal crafting kits.

And you can always show us your love by signing up for our newsletter and/or by  liking us on facebook!

We'd love to hear from you by email, too!