Thom’s Story

Thom lives in a village about an hour and a half from Phnom Penh. She comes from a village and family steeped in generations of silk weavers. At 12 years old she left school to start working alongside her mother and grandmother. She loves making silk. She loves the process of dyeing the silk, transferring the thread onto bobbins, setting the loom frame, and then weaving and finishing the silk product. She loves the feel of the thread in her hands. And she’s proud of the beautiful end products.

Today she struggles with two challenges facing the survival of her village tradition of silk making.

The first is the rapid growth of garment factories. They offer young women a minimal but secure wage drawing them away from their homes and families. They spend long hours in the factories, transported to and fro standing like cattle in the back of open roof trucks.

Secondly, the production of machine-made garments at lower prices, undercut the prices of local sellers and flood the local and overseas markets with cheap items made on the back of cheap labour.

Thom is working to restore the socioeconomic dignity of the women in her village. She has started a small co-op, encouraging the women to work together on orders, quality control and selling. Her market is largely the Phnom Penh stores and wholesalers who can then market and sell to overseas buyers.  

We are part of her story.

But, She makes her future.

I remember meeting with a Self Help Group in Rwanda. I had been interviewing the women for university research over the course of three years and it was coming to an end. So I ended my last meeting by telling them, ‘I promise that when i share your stories, I will not speak about your frailties and poverty. I will speak about your achievements and strength and courage’. At this they jumped to the feet to cheer and dance and celebrate.

I learned something from that moment. I learned that people want to be seen for who they are today not where they started, celebrated not pitied.

This is the commitment of the Foxglove Project.

To find the best in women and girls around the world that can change their circumstances and then help them to bring it to their personal world, their families and their communities.

When we do this, we practice the adage we all know to be true:

“Give a woman a fish and you feed her for a day; Teach a woman to fish and she feeds herself for a lifetime.”

70% of the world’s poor are women. That is a worldwide fact according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

But here’s another fact…if a woman earns a dollar, she will spend 80 cents on her family.

And another…if you help a woman out of poverty, she will take 7 people with her.

Supporting women in the developing world is targeting both the most urgent need AND making the most effective contribution in addressing poverty.

It’s for these reasons that Foxglove focuses on women and girl projects (education and vocational training, entrepreneurship and business start ups, Self Help Groups and small business cooperatives, personal development and friendship networks).

When you help a woman out of poverty, she reaches out for the hands of her children, her family and her community.

She holds up half the sky…

Meet Angelique and Angelique from a Self Help Group (SHG) in Rwanda. Joining a SHG has changed their lives – from poverty to dignity and hope.

They are standing in front of the door to their first storage facility. It was the beginning of a new life. Their SHG chose a group income activity buying and selling charcoal. Putting their money together gave them leverage. They rented this room. Bought charcoal in bulk. Bagged it for households. Sold it across the village. Business was good. The next step was to buy a plot of land. Then take out a loan for RwF1,000,000 (US$1330) and build their own storage unit. 

Now two years later, they’ve paid off the loan. 

No more rent. More profit. Life keeps winding upward. 

She knows her needs. She makes her future.

Why ‘Foxglove Project’? What is a Foxglove? 

Finding a name isn’t easy. First of all, lots of first ideas are taken. Secondly, you just want it to be perfect. Crazy! But really, it feels so personal. Like the name should say just the right thing. So you get tangled up in meaning, logos and images. But here’s the real story.

A Foxglove is a plant. It’s hardy and resilient. And as it grows, it shades and protects other plants in the garden. Not only that, it’s a self-sowing plant. It represents the idea of sustainability. Independence. Self-determination. And finally, one more unique quality. It contains an element that can be used medicinally to treat heart disease. It deals with the heart. The core of life. Now that is the story of the name, the whole story.

So when you see ‘Foxglove Project’ read: hardy, resilient, protective, sustainable and focused on the heart. 

You’ll be right every time!