A New Venture: The Sak Saum Freedom Facility

Ginny Hanson, Sak Saum's international director, is a visionary lady eager to follow God's leading and not afraid to take on new adventures and leaps of faith. Since Sak Saum follows a God who cares about the poor, empowers the broken and invites everyone to a walk of deeper faith, we are constantly excited by the doors He opens!

Both Ginny and Theavy, Sak Saum's national director, have had a long-time vision to open a facility in Saang. This facility would provide stable sewing jobs with a healthy, fair, loving work environment. Garment factories are all too common here in Cambodia. Most of them pay salaries that no one could live on with work conditions, hours and other challenges that are difficult to imagine. Factories of this kind are often the first stop in trafficking, an open door to other, more dangerous avenues of employment.

As Sak Saum has grown in its business ventures, it has become evident that we cannot keep up with the demands while continuing the ministry itself. After all, healing and restoration takes time, counseling, love, teaching, laughter, and tears. Most of the time that does not happen while sitting at a sewing machine! 

We want to help more girls -- the needs are truly great. And we want to pour all we can into our current girls. To do so, we need to generate greater revenue which means more product. More product necessitates more sewers -- I am sure you can see the tension that this would create. The Sak Saum Freedom Facility allows Sak Saum, the ministry, to continue as it always has while meeting the increasing demands for Sak Saum's product. Our Sak Saum girls will continue sewing -- their vocational training and skill in producing beautiful bags is an important piece of their empowerment. 

Those who work for the Sak Saum Freedom Facility receive fair trade salaries and work in an environment that is caring, safe and empowering. It is being directed by one of our long-time Sak Saum girls. We have room for 12 machines with the possibility of future expansion. We are very excited!

Here a few pics of the beginnings of the facility with more updates to come!

The front of the new Sak Saum Freedom Facility in the early stages of renovations.

Ginny and Theavy discussing the building contract.

Construction!

The new ceiling going in...

Clearing the yard...almost done!

Some In His Steps staff and women from Sak Saum's women's group helping to paint and clean.

Ready to open!

Until next time!

Fair Trade with Coconuts

So...we know we promised a sneak peak of fall colors this blog. However, we then realized that it is only mid-May. In the design world, you have to think about six months ahead which means we are up to our ears in gorgeous tweeds and robust corduroys. But the rest of you are just getting ready to sip some iced tea and head to the pool for the first time! Needless to say, we decided to postpone our fall preview for a few more weeks.

Instead, we want to introduce you to someone very special. His name is Bang and this is his story. Ginny, Sak Saum's director, first met Bang several years ago. He was quite a different man then. His wife was the primary bread-winner with her job as a police woman. Unfortunately, Cambodia's police are paid very poorly, contributing to a lot of corruption. You can imagine the loss of dignity and purpose Bang experienced as a man unable to provide for his family. What could be done to help him and his family? The answer? Coconuts.

Sak Saum was able to help Bang establish a business carving coconuts into beautiful buttons, ornaments and even musical instruments. Now Sak Saum practices fair trade with Bang, buying his incredible handicraft to use on our bags and other products. As you can see from the photos below, Bang no longer lives with despair and low-self esteem. His eyes shine with the hope and purpose he has found. What a great God we serve!

Meet Bang...

Hard at work cutting the coconut shell...

 Some necessary tools and uncut buttons.

Sanding coconuts. Did you know they are a natural Cambodian resource?

Hard at work...

And the fruit? Key chains, ornaments, buttons, musical instruments AND hope and dignity.

We use Bang's buttons and rings on our bags quite often.

See you next time!