Jessi Marquez

Welcome to BeadforLife

On our website, you will find stories about fascinating and inspiring people both in Uganda and in other parts of the world. (Check out Meet the Beaders.) Our beaders and tailors are primarily impoverished women who are hardworking, intelligent, and strong in their desire to improve their lives. They make gorgeous handcrafted paper beads from recycled paper and turn them into necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Because the beaders use recycled, colorful paper, the beads help prevent environmental degradation. What was trash becomes beauty, money, food, and hope.

Click here to see how a bead is rolled

Our goal is for our members to be independent of BeadforLife within 27 months by being able to support themselves within the Ugandan economy. To assist members in launching their own small businesses or in creating new revenue streams, we provide entrepreneurial training, facilitate savings accounts, and make business funds available.

In addition to buying and selling the beads, BeadforLife sponsors Community Development projects in health, vocational training for impoverished youth, affordable housing, and business development. These projects are supported with the net profits from the sale of the beads, and support not only beaders, but other impoverished people living in Uganda. See how many people we have touched in our first years.

BeadforLife is guided by the following principles:

Creating businesses and jobs through entrepreneurial development is a more sustainable approach to poverty eradication than providing aid. Rather than becoming dependent on handouts from abroad, members build their skills and long-term capacities through meaningful creative work.

Concerned citizens in resource-abundant countries care about the issues of extreme poverty and are willing to get involved.

Paying the members fair trade prices allows them to meet their daily economic needs. Investing 100% of our net profits in community development projects for impoverished Ugandans allows for a long-term sustainable future.

Working together enriches all of us.

Welcome to the Bead Circle!

BeadforLife is part of an international grassroots movement to overcome extreme poverty. Your participation in the Bead Circle makes a difference. Please join us.

All of us together complete the Bead Circle: the Ugandans; party and event hosts; volunteers; and those who buy, give, wear and love these beautiful beads. There are already tens of thousands of us wearing bright paper jewelry made from strong Ugandan hands as a symbol of our commitment to work for a better world.

Painting by

Charlotte Jorgensen

See How to Help and be sure to sign up for The Bead for the latest news and stories from BeadforLife.

'Kamu Kamu gwe mugaanda'

'One by One Makes a Bundle' - an African proverb