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But beyond money, said Ms. LeFrak, "I had to give sustainable work."
Inspired by the philosophy of Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microenterprise bank loans, Ms. LeFrak enlisted her friend, Ms. Wachtler, in the task of building a financial foundation for the Rwandan women. With input from the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, they developed Same Sky, whose workers produce a line of hand-made bracelets marketed in the West.
Ms. LeFrak credits Ms. Wachtler with "giving me tools and structure, the level I lacked." In addition to maintaining corporate records, Ms. Wachtler handles licensing agreements with Rwandan interests, including Same Sky's association with Gayaha Links, a company that employs HIV-positive women.
The name "Same Sky," said Ms. LeFrak, "just came to me in a flash. I wanted the idea of connection and inclusion. We all live under the same sky, and the same stars."
Trade Not Aid
The two New Yorkers hope to see their venture in Rwanda become what they term a "trade-not-aid" model replicated elsewhere in the world where women bear heaviest damage from wars and natural disasters. But the idea should be kept small-scale, wherever it may develop, they say.
"When we started talking about the finer points, it became very important that we didn't have the women making more than three or four bracelets a day," said Ms. Wachtler. "They simply can't work that much. We don't want to turn this into something where everyone's out for a big profit."
Gayaha Links maintains the shop in Kigali where Same Sky workers, about 75 women at any one time, are provided stipends for daily commuting and a free lunch. Same Sky workers are provided with individual bank accounts for direct, electronic deposit of wages.
The shop also serves a secondary function as a social center for the women, who are trained in bracelet making by Gayaha's supervising artisans.
Bracelets are marketed online, at www.samesky.com and sold at retail outlets in the United States, Europe and the Caribbean, as well as private sale events, such as one tonight at DKNY Madison Avenue, and December's special sale at the Sackler Center for Feminist Art, part of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The result is "justice in the finest tradition of the New York bar," said David M. Crane, a professor at Syracuse University College of Law and from 2002 to 2005 chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a U.N. war crimes tribunal.
Reached at his vacation home in the Great Smoky Mountains, Mr. Crane said in an interview, "Women and children bear the brutal price of internal armed conflict throughout the world. The Same Sky program is a tremendous symbiosis of nurturing, healing and providing a future. It's making a difference in facing down the beast of impunity."
Police are still searching for Moat, who has a three-year old baby with ex-girlfriend and attack victim Samantha Stobbart.
A 10-year-old Batemans Bay girl has received the go-ahead from the Guinness Book of Records to attempt a world record of linked bracelets at a special fundraiser this Saturday.
For more local news and photos grab a copy of the Bay Post or Moruya Examiner.
Jayde Bell is currently in remission from Ewings childhood cancer, a form of bone cancer, and together with her sister Jessica, 13, has created the Linking the Links Foundation to help fight the disease.
Jayde emailed the Links of London Jewellery Links of London Guinness Book of Records asking them if she links of london bracelet could attempt the world’s longest chain of linked bracelets.
They said they would reply in <a href="http://uk-elinksoflondon.com/index&cPath=73.html">links of london charms</a> four to six weeks, and six weeks later they emailed her back, giving her the go-ahead for the record.
“I was so excited,” she said. “I thought because the foundation is called Linking the Links, that this was an ideal way to raise funds, because we will be linking people as well as bracelets.”
Called the Link-A-Bead-A-Thon, <a href="http://uk-elinksoflondon.com/index&cPath=73.html">links of london charms</a> the world record attempt will be held at Jellybeads of Mogo this Saturday.
Participants make bracelets and pay $2 per bracelet, which they can then attach to the chain in an attempt to set a ne <a href="http://uk-elinksoflondon.com/">Links of London</a> w world record.
People are expected to come from <a href="http://uk-elinksoflondon.com/">Links of London Jewellery</a> Victoria, Sydney and Canberra, as well as from the Batemans Bay and Moruya areas.
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