WORK OF OUR HANDS MINISTRY

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NEED FOR OUR MINISTRY

Until 1990 (independence), employment opportunities for blacks were restricted to menial, unskilled labor. Today the seeds planted by apartheid have grown into a legacy of poverty, and worse, a poverty mentality. Above all else, there is a sense of hopelessness that life will ever improve.

For this reason, the concepts of entrepreneurism and self-employment are relatively foreign to the native population. Their lack of employable skills keeps them stuck within a highly dependent mindset. They feel their fate is predetermined, and there is little they can do to improve their lot in life. Work of our Hands seeks to change that mindset by developing the artistic and handcraft skills (primarily of women) and demonstrating how these skills can be used to make a better way of life for their families.

This need exists throughout the country. Unemployed families are everywhere. The need is so overwhelming; one could easily be discouraged from even beginning. Yet large projects always begin with small endeavors and people committed to making a difference.

OUR MISSION
The mission of Work of our Hands is to provide hope and dignity for the unemployed through the creation of cottage industries, which produce handcraft products for local and international markets.

We envision a holistic ministry that teaches handcraft, basic life skills, and business skills, as well as addresses the educational and spiritual needs of participants. Skills alone will not overcome the apartheid legacy. The greater challenge is to impart new life skills, and a new way of thinking.
Our further mission is for each project to become self supporting. That is, not dependent on W.O.O.H. to continue. Our goal is to develop interdependent entrepreneurs. Small businesses that can cooperate to buy supplies and market their products, but that operate as separate business entities.

Many here say our goals are too large, indeed un-doable! I, Val, hear constantly about how ”it’s been tried before, it can’t work; a project never out lives it’s founder” etc. I hear about how lazy the native population is, how unmotivated, and how crafts won’t sell in Namibia. We have already proven crafts do sell in Namibia, although granted the market is small. As to the lazy and unmotivated part, since we do not pay individuals to be trained, those without any self motivation are naturally weeded out of the program. Each individual either has their own business, as with the bead ladies, or they share supplies, as in Five Rand, and are paid when the items they have made are sold. At this point they receive all the money for the item except for the cost of the supplies they have used.

So, are our goals too large? Is the job indeed un-doable? Only time will tell. All I, Val, know, is that I believe in it enough to give myself, and my prayers fully to it! With God all things are possible, and I believe He has uniquely gifted me, and sent me to Namibia for such a time as this.