These are the community podcasts your can go back and listen to.

	More community podcasts to come
May 2022	About Love Binti
May 2022	Threaded Together AZ
April 2022	Sewing Machine Magic – Love Binti
January 2022	Uthando project

Love Binti

Thursday 19 May 2022: Elle and Suzan talk about Love Binti and how Sewing Machine Magic is one of the programs they run for the local communities.

Threaded Together AZ

Tuesday 3 May 2022: Sierra of Threaded Together talks about the programs run for the local community and developed from community needs.

Threaded Together is about inspiring creativity and connection through textile arts programs that partner with participants to nurture inclusive communities, cultivate agency, and provide employment pathways for people who have faced institutional injustice.

Sewing squad, Create + Connect and the STEP program are the program created by Threaded Together based on the wants of their community.

Threaded Together has a facebook page, a website and their Instagram account. Sierra manages their social media accounts.

Sewing Machine Magic

Thursday 28 April 2022: Elle Yang and Suzan Okae talk about Sewing Machine Magic, a program run within the programs run by Love Binti in Uganda.

Love Binti presented their programs at this year’s Commission into the Status of Women 66 run virtually by the United Nations Women UK group. The sewing machines used to get Sewing Machine Magic started were initially funded through donations from Zonta International in Taiwan.

Elle tells how Sewing Machine Magic was initiated after she learned of the disadvantages girls had through lack of sanitary pads in their communities. Once girls started their menstrual cycles, they were unable to attend school during their periods and then they were unable to continue their education.

Fund raising for the programs run by Love Binti are needed to help run their local programs to help the local communities raise their living standards. They’re currently fund raising for sewing pads.

About Love Binti: Love Binti from Swahili means the caring and loving of a girl.
Love Binti exists to care for women in rural areas in Africa and improve their living and health conditions. By upgrading infrastructure and providing vocational training, Love Binti helps women improve their work skills and get out of poverty. Love Binti believes that women are the cornerstone of change. The transformation of a woman’s life can lead to the reversal of a family and even a community.

You can learn more about Love Binti through their website and on Instagram.

Uthando Project

Thursday 13 January 2021: Ann Vivers talks about the work undertaken by the Uthando Project. This is the project that you’ve seen on Instagram as UthandoprojectdollmakersSydney.

Uthando Project is based in Perth, Western Australia and this organisation is run by unpaid volunteers.

Uthando Project Mission

To create handmade dolls for our partner organisations in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, who work with disadvantaged and vulnerable children to strengthen relationships through play.

To provide opportunities for community, shared creativity and purpose for dollmakers in Australia and around the world.

What they do: Since 2004 thousands of dollmakers from around the world have designed, made and sent or delivered handmade dolls for children in KwaZulu Natal (KZN), South Africa. The number of dolls shipped each year has steadily increased and around 6000 dolls are shipped each year to our partners in KZN from our headquarters in Forrestfield.  Groups provide doll makers with a sense of community and companionship through a sharing of skills and ideas with a common humanitarian purpose.

Uthando Project partners with five non-government organizations in KwaZulu Natal distributing dolls to children in need.

Why dolls?

We began making dolls as a response to the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: Children’s  lives are deeply affected by the distress in every family caused by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. To lose one or both parents is a shattering experience for children.

The impact extends to other families, and to the elderly, who are now under great pressure to raise the community’s children. Even children in an intact family may now be sharing the attention of their parents (and all the family space and resources) with grieving cousins. All children are surrounded by family and community grief.