Ida Horner's Page

In December 2006 I went to Uganda for Christmas and whilst there I was invited to New Year’s eve party in South West Uganda. I had never been to this part of Uganda and found it difficult to reconcile the beauty of that part of the country with the poverty – I resolved to do something on my return to the UK

I quit my job with a view to do something about the whole situation I had witnessed in South West Uganda. The result is Ethnic Supplies, an online business selling a range of products made by poverty-stricken women’s groups from Uganda as well as Tanzania, Kenya and Madagascar. Items include costume jewellery, mats, bags and silk scarves; all made by hand using natural materials and traditional methods.

Ethnic Supplies was launched in October and now helps suppliers such as Hand Products of Tanzania (HOT) which is made up of women from Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda some of whom have disabilities or are affected by HIV/AIDS.

What I'm doing is providing a market for these goods as the women don’t have anywhere to sell them apart from the odd tourist and clearly this is not enough to sustain them and their families. It is also a more dignified and sustainable way out of poverty.

Having set up Ethnic Supplies, I was approached by various people wanting to collaborate with me in some way; one of these people is 65 year old Grandmother Ann McCarthy who had heard about my work and wanted to know if I could help.

I could not see how but proposed that we organise a fundraising event. I realised that given her age and what she is trying to achieve, the project was in dire need of a cash injection to finish off all the projects that the villagers had started.

The most pressing of these is getting clean water into the village, currently the women and children walk 2-3 hours to get water from the bottom of the valley, but even then the water is dirty and quite possibly is disease causing. The second pressing matter is construction of a Community Resource Centre. Ann sent tools such as sewing machines for the women’s project but they have no room/building from which to do the work, therefore the money raised from the event will address these two issues

We adopted the theme of LET THEM HELP THEMSELVES OUT OF POVERTY for the fundraising event and as the organisation of the event got under way it occurred to me that I could formalise LET THEM HELP THEMSELVES as an initiative under which all the people who want to collaborate with me can work. I see my role in this as providing a structure for everyone else. Since making this decision, a friend of mine who works at the Imperial College has come on board and she is going to encourage Doctors to give up part of their holiday to go and volunteer in hospital in Uganda, this has been done before.

Another friend based in Poland has found a jewellery designer out there who is willing to travel to Madagascar to teach women jewellery making, in order that they can produce marketable skills. We are looking for people like this especially those that can teach these communities business skills so that they can help themselves out of poverty instead of relying on grants.

For further details about Ethnic Supplies and Let them help themselves please visit www.ethnicsupplies.co.uk or www.lethemhelpthemselves.com