Ending prostitution, one scarf at a time

Saba, left, with Cherry, displaying the Sheba scarf. All photos: Karen Walrond / ONE

Saba, 23, has a youthful round face and beautiful black hair pulled back into a curly ponytail. Her toenails are painted shiny silver.  Saba had a “very good life” until her father died. She went to school and lived at home with her parents. After her father died, things changed.

“We didn’t have enough,” she says. Her relationship with her mother deteriorated and she left home at age 18 and moved to another town. After working at several jobs, not making enough money, until she met a girl living next door who “lived much better”.

You can probably guess what this other girl did. Like her, Saba became a prostitute. When she talks about this time of her life, her face is solemn and she does not delve into details. In 2011, she came to  Women at Risk and FashionABLE, and started with the organisation’s yearlong programme (!) that helps usher women out of prostitution and into lives where they can earn money, support themselves and their children if they have any, and love themselves again.

The women earn money by making scarves (spinning and dyeing the thread and weaving on looms) in a project run by Women at Risk and fashionABLE. I met Sheba on the visit to the headquarters in Addis Ababa I went on with ONE. Sheba roasted coffee beans, then served us coffee, before telling us her story and showing us the scarf named after her, a beautiful square blue scarf with the appearance of denim.

It’s when Saba talked about the difference in her life now, she becomes animated, speaking quickly about the future. She talks about going to church and looking after her home. She talks about visiting her mother. “I want to pursue my education,” she says. “I want to reach women who were in the darkness.”

I can’t imagine what it must be like for Sheba to sit and talk to a group of bloggers who don’t speak her language. In a way, I wonder what it must be like to be surrounded by strangers who look at you avidly and find your story of “triumph over adversity” inspiring.

But Saba’s story is moving.

Mulu speaking to Women at Risk and #ONEMums

So is 38-year-old’s Mulu’s, who was forced to leave her beloved husband and child because of tribal differences and worked as a prostitute for 7 years. “Now I have peace. I have peace with my God,” Mulu says. What irritates her these days is the thread breaking on the loom.

We had an amazing visit to fashionABLE – we met the women, we put on gloves and helped dye cotton, we watched them work on the looms (some bloggers had a go). And we shopped. Oh, how we shopped.

The women dyeing cotton thread

Because these scarves aren’t “buy them as an act of charity” scarves. These are scarves that are stocked at the legendary L.A. boutique Fred Segal. These are scarves that you may soon see at U.S. department stores Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. And these are scarves that you can buy via the www.livefashionable.com website that directly help give a future to some Ethiopian women, while also looking utterly fabulous ‘round your neck.

When we left, the shelves were practically empty. I bought 11, for gifts from now til Christmas. But don’t worry. Go ahead and buy an affordable scarf or three (only $36 US). They’re making more as we speak.

fashionABLE scarves

Michelle Pannell, me, model Maya Haile and Women at Risk director Cherry Friedmeyer

All pictures: Karen Walrond / ONE

I’m travelling in Ethiopia as an expense-paid guest of The ONE Campaign (www.one.org), a nonpartisan, advocacy organization dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.  ONE works to convince governments (the US, as well as others) to invest in smart programs that help to eliminate poverty and preventable disease in a sustainable way. We are here to tell the success stories of the people and programmes we see. ONE doesn’t ask for your money, just your voice.

Visit the ONEMoms / ONEMums website to read posts from all the bloggers, follow the #ONEMums and #ONEMoms hashtag on Twitter and Instagram, and like the ONEMoms Facebook page.

About Jennifer Howze

Jennifer Howze is the Creative Director and co-founder of BritMums. She blogs about family travel at Jenography.net, tweets at @JHowze and Instagrams at @JHowze. Previously, she wrote the Alpha Mummy blog at The Times and as a journalist has contributed to The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, CNN.com, Allure, SELF and Premiere, among others. She won The Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for a health article in Seventeen magazine.

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