G&G Celebrates Amazing Women in 2013

This year, Gifts and Graces celebrated Women's Month with another Amazing Women exhibit. The exhibit was hosted by SM Southmall. This year, instead of individual women, we featured women's organizations that empower women. We wanted to tell the story not just of Filipino organizations but also those in Asia. From the Philippines we featured Caritas Manila, PAMANA ng Pag-Asa Cooperative, Kaibhan and Nanay Linda Casimiro of Pandacan. From Asia we featured Laxmi Majrjan and Rupa Biswa Karma both from Nepal. Below is the story of Freeset, an organization that works to help women be free from the bondage of prostitution

Being a fair trade organization, we featured the stories alongside the products that empower women.

Newspaper bags, brass bells, woven plastic bags

Agate bag charms, Soy candles, Embroidered pillows, travel sets, woven retaso coin purses

On weekends we featured product demonstrations. Here Ate Liezel Quismorio from Pandacan, Manila assembles mini origami stars made from magazine pages.

Our visitors also expressed support for our advocacies aligned with the Fair Trade Principles. Here's a collage of students, families, friends who support Fair Trade, the environment, women empowerment, micro-enterprises and Filipino craftsmen, and non-discrimination.

Among our visitors were some kids who played with the wood toys made by Tahanang Walang Hagdanan.

We were also visited by our Capacity Building Program participants

and a group of women from the Department of Tourism - NCR who made the visit part of their women empowerment program for the day.

Watch out for our succeeding posts on the stories of the organizations we featured as well as our simple program to highlight the importance of supporting women.

And of course we hope you can join us next year when we celebrate another group of Amazing Women in 2014.