“New Life Handbags”

 

Ana, her husband and their 8 children live in a small, rural village in Northern Honduras. Local families struggle to feed their children and send them to school. An education is necessary to move out of the cycle of poverty and food is necessary to be able to concentrate and learn. She says, “I just can’t send them to school when they haven’t eaten. It would be too painful for them and they wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway.” Ana’s husband works 6 days a week and only see the family late in the evenings and on Sunday. But even with a full-time job there still have been days, sometimes stretches of days, when there was no food in the house. And recently they have taken in 2 more children from another family to care for.

Eight of the kids in the house are of school age, but to be able to enroll, they must be able to pay the tuition, buy uniforms and black shoes, buy notebooks and other supplies, and pay fees that come up throughout the year. Without extra income, this is not possible.

In the last 5 months, Ana and the older children have begun making handbags to sell. They are crocheted using used, plastic shopping bags. The “yarn” is created by cutting strips from the bags and tying them together into long lengths. Here, a youth group in Virginia is helping to cut the bags. The strips will soon be taken to Honduras to Ana’s “factory” on the front porch where they will be given new life.

The designs and uses are many – purses, backpacks, shopping bags, beach bags, etc. The sale of these bags brings some hope for the future now. The old plastic bags that were ending up along the road or in the landfill are now finding a new life, and so is Ana’s family.

One of Ana’s children poses in his school uniform.

And here are some samples of completed bags.

And Ana tirelessly working. She says they are busy “weaving like spiders.”