Hellen Amonea
Seed bead jewellery
A specialist in seed bead jewellery, providing for six children.
“With the seminars and the teaching about business, I have been able to manage my business in a way that benefits me.”
Hellen's parents moved to Kitale when she was a baby and eventually settled in the Kipsongo slum. Without access to education, she and her siblings begged on the streets for food. As she grew older, life became harder without any schooling. Thinking it would solve her problems, she entered an early marriage, but her husband was an alcoholic who drank all of his earnings. To feed her six children, Hellen searched for food in dumpsters, and when that was not enough she was forced to sell her body to make ends meet. On the streets she faced violence from dangerous men and was often arrested. She began to lose hope.
When her sister told her about the Baskets and Beads group, Hellen took the chance. She stopped going to the streets and began making and selling bead necklaces and baskets. She has a natural talent for seed bead jewellery. Her dream is to one day own a piece of land and a house away from the Kipsongo slum, and to give her children the education she never got.
In Hellen’s words
“To move from the slum and have a home of my own.”
Stand behind Hellen
Gifts go into the group’s shared table banking pool and the programs that support every woman in the circle: materials, literacy, medical help, and school fees for their children.
