Peace & Light

RUGS WITHOUT EXPLOITATION
Consumers have long sought out beautiful rugs from South Asia. Many would be surprised to learn that those rugs are made by enslaved children. Nina Smith, J89, is working to publicize the issue, rescue the kids, and lay the groundwork for a healthier economy in South Asian countries—all through RugMark USA, of which she is executive director. Founded in 1994, RugMark monitors looms and factories and provides educational opportunities to former child weavers. And it attaches the RugMark label to rugs that it finds to have been manufactured without exploitation. “Our goal is to get consumers to value the people who make the things they buy,” Smith says. She believes that RugMark could help wipe out child labor in the handmade rug industry within eight to ten years. In just the last decade, the number of child slaves weaving rugs has fallen from a million to 300,000.

AFRICAN MOMS FACE DOWN AIDS
Pregnant African women with HIV often foresee a bleak future, unaware of the medical treatments that can prolong and improve their lives and protect their babies. That’s starting to change, thanks to mothers2mothers, of which Robin Smalley, J77, is cofounder and international director. Mothers2mothers trains and employs as outreach workers those who have the most intimate possible knowledge of what HIV-infected African moms are going through: other HIV-infected African moms. Started in 2001, the organization operates 99 sites in South Africa and Lesotho. By early 2008, sites in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Swaziland, and Malawi should be up and running as well. Results so far are encouraging. According to a recent independent study, participants in mothers2mothers are significantly less likely to feel alone in the world, overwhelmed by problems, or hopeless about the future.