Thanks to the Lunenburg Rotary Club and the Tantallon Bay Grans for donating 150 pairs of reading glasses. This wonderful pile of glasses is headed to South Africa with me next week.

I’ll spend 2 weeks leading a group of 20 people around some of my favourite places. We’ll visit various crafts groups to meet the makers. Some of the groups we’ll meet are suppliers for African Threads and are self-help, economic empowerment groups. We love visiting these groups of dynamic women how are using their traditional crafts to make gorgeous textiles, beadwork and copper wire work. Many of them are grandmothers.

Tour members bring embroidery threads, reading glasses, sewing equipment and supplies. We learned that getting reading glasses is one of the most useful of gifts. It enables women to continue beading and embroidery and that in turn means the difference between feeding their families or not. Here are photos of some of the women we gave glasses to last year in South Africa.

For information about my tours to South Africa see http://www.africanthreads.ca/south-african-tour/