I woke up earlier than expected this morning, so I decided to be better about taking advantage of living in this beautiful coastal town.  I took our dog Sadie for a walk on the beach (I forget that it means an automatic bath for my furry friend) and found the ocean to be very generous with its gift of sea glass today.

And I couldn’t help but feel connected to the women across the world that Trades of Hope partners with – Jordanian women who are in a variety of difficult positions (divorced, orphaned, widowed, polygamy, refugee, etc.) who have found restoration in collecting sea glass out of the Red Sea to make our beautiful Sea Glass necklaces!  Each piece is as unique as the woman who made it.

But this kind of sustainable work gets better!

Jumana, one of our artisan group leaders

Because of their nurturing natures, when you empower one woman, they can’t help but turn around and share with others.  They also naturally invest their new education and opportunity into their local community.  And these beautiful women have done just that.  They held a community event last Earth Day to teach over 100 women and youth about recycling and how to make beautiful items out of recycled materials.

And it gets even better!  Because of this kind of environmental education and awareness, they aren’t finding as much sea glass to collect.  So they have resourcefully created a way to take the bottles that they are recycling from their community and tubs of water from the Red Sea to “create” sea glass!