Lots of Recycled Paper

For the past few years of the card project, we've bought the majority of our recycled paper from some women in Trujillo who make this paper. We initially tried to make our own paper, but found it was a hard process and that it served us better to buy it from a supplier. However, as our business grew, we often needed more paper than they had, or we had to place special orders and wait for the paper to come in. This past year, we decided to try again at making our own paper, recognizing that we needed more paper than we could buy from our supplier and more control over when we could get it. Also, this would offer more employment opportunities for women in our communities. Finding flexible, well-paying work for women who have little education and children at home that need care is not an easy task, especially in a developing country with high unemployment.

I'm ecstatic with what I saw yesterday- thousands of sheets of recycled paper made primarily by women from our Arevalo community, all of it beautiful and ready to be crafted into handmade designs for the cards. What's amazing to me is that all of this has been transformed from trash: used paper that was going to be thrown away.


Yesterday we met to begin the process of labeling, filing, and cataloging our recycled paper. The idea is to know which colors we use the most for our current designs, catalog the colors so it's easy for the ladies who make them to produce an exact match for future designs, and get a good inventory count.Here, Azucena and Oscar start sorting, while Deisy and Monica look over the current catalog of paper in the background.Look at all that paper! You can't see, but there were boxes of paper piled up around the room.
Here are some different colors and designs the ladies have made. I'm constantly amazed at their creativity and artistic ability!
Here are the direct beneficiaries of this business: the children who will receive better medical care, nutrition, educational opportunities, and have a brighter future because of the hard work of their mothers.
One of the things I love the most about this project is that it allows the women the opportunity to work while being home with their children. When we have meetings, there are usually many children present, as they accompany their mothers and then play with their friends while the ladies meet.

"She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed." Proverbs 31:27-28