Heartfelt

How an arts and crafts program is giving at-risk women all over the world hope

- Elena Tafone

THE HEARTS ARE SMALL AND simple. Red or white cotton, embroidered with flowers and stars. For years, the Salvation Army used them to teach at-risk women in Bangladesh how to sew. Making the embroidered hearts was good training for more difficult craftwork.

In countries like Bangladesh, women with few marketable skills often become victims of human trafficking or sometimes turn to prostitution as a way to survive and feed their children. That’s why the Salvation Army established the Others program in 1997, to train women to be artists and craftspeople, making textiles and jewelry. The Salvation Army markets the women’s products, and the profits go back into creating more jobs, more hope.

Hundreds of women had been helped through Others by 2017. But no one gave much thought to the hearts.

Until the winter of 2017. That was when April Foster, the director of Others, went to Bangladesh to meet some women in the program. She was visiting a woman named Lucky, a graduate of Others who had started her own tailoring business.