Jewelry aids women and children in Uganda.
What do women in Dallas, Texas and the country of Uganda have in common? They are survivors. Many live in extreme poverty and have survived wars and the HIV/AIDs epidemic in Uganda, while in Texas many have been victims of sex trafficking and incarceration. They all have the same goal – to feed and provide for their children and to become productive members of their villages, neighborhoods and countries.
Through Akola, which means “she works” in Lusoga, over 500 Ugandan and Dallas women have been empowered to achieve those goals since 2007.
Residents of the El Dorado area will get to see the beaded jewelry these women make and become a part of improving their lives during a “join the impact, stop the cause” Akola Trunk Show from 1-7 p.m. Thursday at Sydney Murphy Design, 111 E. Main St., El Dorado. At 5 p.m. that day, a member of the Akola Project will give her personal testimony and everyone is invited to attend the show and meet Akola workers.
Sydney Murphy of El Dorado was recently in Dallas and heard about the Akola Project. She immediately purchased some of the beaded necklaces and bracelets made by women involved in the project to be sold at her store in El Dorado, Sydney Murphy Design. The unique Akola jewelry pieces start at $35 at Sydney Murphy Design.
Suzanne Reynolds of Sydney Murphy Design explained that necklaces are made by women in Uganda from handrolled paper and they are colored using plants and other hues found in nature in Uganda. The craftswomen also fashion medallions from ammunition casings, animal shells and bones and create some of the chains used to complete the jewelry.
Akola’s collection retails in every Neiman Marcus store nationwide and online. The collection features the signature Keratasi paper beads, hand-rolled by over 200 women and mothers in remote villages of Uganda. The skill allows them to work from their home so they can provide for their children, while earning an income. Each piece of Akola jewelry is hand-crafted by women in Uganda and Dallas working to redesign their stories. One hundred percent of product sales are reinvested to empower women and families.
Brittany Underwood’s story
The Akola journey began with a 10-minute meeting that changed the life of Akola’s founder. In 2004, Brittany Underwood was moved to compassion as a sophomore in college after meeting a Ugandan woman named Sarah,
who cared for 24 street children in her home. Compassion escalated to action as Underwood founded a nonprofit to construct an orphanage home to house children who slept on Sarah’s floor.
In 2006, after graduating college, Underwood moved to Uganda to begin the construction of the orphanage and the drilling of over 23 water wells throughout the country. As the team traveled to different villages, they were amazed by women who cared for 10 or more children in their homes. Like Sarah, they had a hope and vision for their families; they simply did not have the income or confidence to embrace their calling. After completing the orphanage, Underwood discovered that by training and employing women
and guaranteeing them a monthly income, they could care for thousands of children, without the construction of an orphanage home.
In 2007, Underwood launched a new sustainable model to uplift women and children. The women named it “Akola,” and after five years in the field, she worked with the best development practitioners in the country to develop a sustainable impact model for women.
The work paid off. Over the last seven years, the Akola Project has blossomed into a thriving social business that empowers women across the globe. The hope of Akola is to encourage new thinking about international development and to inspire the next generation
of social innovators to deliver the highest level of impact in disadvantaged communities. Underwood was named the “Best Person in the World” by Yahoo in 2014, and was honored by clothing manufacturer Levi as one of 50 women around the globe who has changed the political, cultural and spiritual shape of the future. She was awarded the Emerging Leader Award from SMU in 2013, received the Young Leader Award from the Dallas Women’s Foundation in 2014 and was the 2014 “My Michelle Moment” recipient for Michelle Watches. Underwood joined the faculty of Southern Methodist University in 2015, where she teaches a new course on social innovation.
From Uganda, the jewelry pieces are shipped to Dallas, where women trained by Akola make a living wage of up to $15 an hour to hand assemble all Akola jewelry. The distribution center runs as a second chance job program for women in Dallas who have criminal records, giving them a chance to enter the mainstream workforce.
One Akola Ugandan worker, Hellen, lost several of her children to the civil war in Uganda and fled from an internal displacement camp. After joining Akola, she was able to construct a secure home, send all seven of her children to school and provide them with a healthy diet. With lessons from Akola Academy in business, finance and goal-setting, Hellen invested her income to launch two successful businesses, which she sold to send two of her children to the university. Today, she trains hundreds of women and facilitates Akola’s ministry outreach.
As a nonprofit, Akola has launched programs in 12 development categories, built three training centers and drilled 23 water wells in impoverished communities throughout Uganda, according to the Akola Project website.
Through Akola, design can define a life and for every necklace that is purchased, Akola designs a new story for a woman and a family.