Women of purpose

Yesterday I had my first session with the Women of Purpose. It is basically a women's group at Mavis's church, the Grace Gospel Church. Ingrid works with them as well (it is on the other side of the island in her community). A lot of these women aren't working. Mavis was really excited when she found out that I know how to make cinnamon buns, and went back to the Women of Purpose to find out if they would be just as interested in learning how to bake all the things that aren't available here. And boy are they. After I gave my little presentation on all the different types of baking, I showed them even more pictures of all the things I've baked. It was so nice to see their reactions, they wanted the recipes for absolutely everything. If even only one of these women actually uses the skills I teach them to start a business venture, how amazing would that be? I would leave here feeling like I made a difference in at least one woman's life =)

Another project I've decided to take up is cleaning up the volunteer room at the PC office. Geoff told me how the volunteer room in Dominica is so much nicer and full of resources, and it made me wonder why on earth that's the case when we have so many more volunteers here in St. Kitts? In addition, I think we could really benefit from a proper binder/database full of useful information to serve as a handbook, from how to get in touch with media to where to shop for what. So that is going to be one of my pet projects I think. I'm going to try and get some of the other volunteers to help me out with actually cleaning up the office though.

I met someone who is extremely involved in the children's home here in St. Kitts. She was talking about how they need organizational strengthening and capacity building (bells in my head, that's EXACTLY what I'm here for). And it's a group I would absolutely love to help out, which I told her. So even if some of my other projects fall through, I'd love to dedicate as much time as possible to this. Hopefully Natasha (the very sweet Canadian Egyptian living here for over 10 years) will get the position of administrator of the home and we can work together on it.