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Q + A
eleanor pinugu
marie klein-burtt
Manila, Philippines // Eleanor Pinugu is the Co-Founder and Excecutive Director of
Mano Amiga Academy (@manoamigaph on Instagram, www.manoamigaph.org), a
non-profit school providing access to affordable, quality, international education.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada // Dani Shaw is the Canadian Director of Operations
for Tribe of Lambs (@tribeoflambs on Instagram, www.tribeoflambs.com). an
ethical jewelry brand impacting lives of HIV-positive children at Rays Home in
Jaipur, India.
Bucharest, Romania // Californian Marie Klein-Burtt (@marieskb on Instagram,
www.kleinburtts.com) and her husband serve with Anchor of Hope / Ancora
Sperantei in Bucharest, Romania, where two biological children and many more
orphaned and abandoned children call her “mama.”
{Q} ELEANOR, CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT MANO
AMIGO ACADEMY DOES ON THE GROUND?
{A} Mano Amiga Academy gives underprivileged children access to an
education at par with the best schools in the world, as well as the
additional support they need in order to succeed in life. Our focus is not
only on developing intellect, but also character, communication skills, and
leadership abilities. After working closely with students and their families,
we realized the need to address other poverty-related factors which
could hinder the children from thriving in school. Mano Amiga has since
evolved into a community center offering different development programs:
health and nutrition, sports programs for values formation and peacebuilding, and sustainable livelihood for women in the community.
{Q} DANI, CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT TRIBE OF
LAMB DOES ON THE GROUND?
{A} Tribe of Lambs is a nonprofit jewelry brand creating opportunities and
bright futures for children who are HIV positive. Our team designs jewelry
(mostly rings), travels to India where we get to work directly with the
artisan, and does projects with the HIV-positive children of Rays Home
in Jaipur, India. We specialize in bold, conversation-sparking rings which
evokes the wearer to share the story of ethically-made jewelry, the
slow fashion movement and how you can make a difference with every
shopping dollar!
{Q} MARIE, CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT ANCHOR
OF HOPE / ANCORA SPERANTEI DOES ON THE GROUND?
{A} Anchor of Hope is a private organization working alongside
government institutions. We work with orphaned and abandoned kids.
Our main goal is relatively straight forward -- to change the future for
these kids. Orphaned and abandoned kids have a fairly bleak future here
in Romania. Statistics show their future most likely includes prostitution,
being trafficked or trafficking, selling drugs or living on the streets. A
good percentage of our current orphaned and abandoned kids come from
the past generation of orphaned and abandoned kids. It is a cycle which
comes from years of communism and poverty. Our goal is to break this
cycle. We work with the kids at all different stages of their lives. We
train families on how to successfully adopt a child, and we are working
to change the bureaucracy to make it possible for more children to be
adopted. We also work in the orphanages providing classes -- we help
the kids with homework, provide activities, etc. We do an anti-trafficking
course with the teenage boys and girls, too. We meet their physical needs,
providing better living conditions, school supplies, and more. The list goes
on and on.
QUESTIONS developed by Gina Munsey
{Q} IF YOU COULD TELL OUR READERS ONE MORE THING, WHAT
WOULD IT BE?
{A} People have the most extraordinary capacity for creating good in the
world. We must constantly seek opportunities to learn from one another,
and to work together to make a significant dent in the most pressing
challenges faced by the world.
{Q} HOW DID YOU ORIGINALLY FIND YOURSELF WORKING WITH THEM?
{A} My childhood best friend, Bobbi, is the creator and founder of Tribe of
Lambs! When she first came up with the idea she did a crowd-funding
campaign to kick it off, and I knew at that point I wanted to be a part
of this amazing business concept. While Bobbi loves traveling the world,
creating jewelry and doing creative projects with the children at Rays
-- I am at home with my kids managing inventory, online orders, and the
business side of things.
{Q} WHAT DO YOUR KIDS THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DO?
{A} My girls love Tribe of Lambs, and are our greatest saleswomen -they have no inhibitions on selling our concept and being a bit pushy!
They love checking out the jewelry, modeling our kids’ products
and learning about the children of India. Bobbi often brings craft
supplies to Rays, and lets the kids have a creative outlet -- some
of these make it home to Canada and get put up in the office. My
girls dream of the day when they will get to go meet these children!
{Q}
WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR A MOTHER WHO WANTS TO
INSTILL A BROADER WORLDVIEW IN HER CHILD/REN, BUT DOESN’T
KNOW WHERE TO START?
{A} There are some great Netflix documentaries we like to watch as a
family; “On the Way to School”, “Babies”, and for older children “Living on
one Dollar”. Last year, a few children opted out of birthday presents
and donated to our compassion projects with Tribe of Lambs. In turn the
children in India did a little thank you video for the birthday boys and
girls which was pretty cool. We have so much in our western society, so
sometimes our children (and we adults too) don’t realize how blessed they
are to grown up like this.
{Q} HOW DID YOU ORIGINALLY FIND YOURSELF WORKING WITH THEM?
{A} We actually uprooted our little family and moved from California to
Chisinau, Moldova first. T