JewelGirls is an income generation and art therapy program that gives teen women a chance for safer, healthier, and brighter futures.  Participants of the JewelGirls program are aged 13 to 26.  Currently, the program supports 200 teen women in Bosnia, Serbia, Russia, Uganda, and Washington, D.C.  Through JewelGirls, participants come together to create unique jewelry while gaining access to therapy, new life skills, financial management skills, and pathways toward a future free of poverty and violence.  JewelGirls come from many backgrounds but all share a common interest in making their own lives better.  Many of the young women participants of JewelGirls have experienced situations of sex and labor trafficking, extreme poverty, life on the streets, statelessness, and homeless.  However, JewelGirls focuses on their resiliency and passion for a better life.

Internationally in Bosnia, Serbia, Russia, and Uganda, JewelGirls participants are survivors of homelessness, human trafficking, and street life who are using jewelry-making as a means to learn new skills in earning a living and leading a safer life.  In Washington, D.C., JewelGirls participants are teen girls committed to making positive social change in their lives through jewelry-making and learning skills that keep them safe from violence and exploitation.

FAIR Fund’s staff, volunteers, and key partners in each of the program locations manage the JewelGirls program.  Each week, participants come together to learn jewelry making skills and how to become truly self-reliant again. The JewelGirls program is a safe way for girls to earn money for food, housing, and basic necessities, in order to one day transition into schools and eventually gainful employment.

JewelGirls Serbia Serbia is the pilot location of the JewelGirls program.  After finding a group of trafficked girls in an abandoned house in Belgrade, Serbia, FAIR Fund developed a program that would be teach these girls, and many more like them, how to make and market their own jewelry. In Serbia, the majority of the JewelGirls come from a life of homelessness, statelessness, street life, and have experienced human trafficking. The money that the girls earn from these sales goes directly to providing the JewelGirls with chances for safe housing, health care, clothing, and basic necessities. For many young girls in the region, JewelGirls provides one of the few existing safe spaces, and helps them to develop a much-needed sense of personal self worth and survival.

JewelGirls Uganda

JewelGirls Uganda is a program currently being launched by FAIR Fund in partnership with Uganda Youth Development Link (UYDEL), a local Ugandan NGO. JewelGirls Uganda works with girls who are residents of UYDEL's Rehabilitation and Vocational Training Centre for out-of-school adolescents who have been victimized by sexual and labor exploitation, abuse, neglect, extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS. JewelGirls Uganda uses traditional Ugandan paper bead-making as a method of art-therapy and economic empowerment. Girls come together every week to make the beads and jewelry, learn life-skills, share their stories and find strength in their shared experiences and new skills. The profits from the sales of these beads will help the girls build independent lives as they transition to a safe adulthood.

JewelGirls Washington, DC

JewelGirls DC is an after-school program for teen girls who demonstrate particular passion for change in their lives and communities to learn jewelry-making and life skills to lead safer, happier and more independent lives.  The girls come together three times a week where they gain access to mentorship, new skills in financial management, and new knowledge in how to stay safe from sexual violence and human trafficking.

Wedding jewelry created by JewelGirls Serbia

JewelGirls Celebrity Spokeswoman, Gabrielle Christian Celebrity Spokeswoman, Gabrielle Christian, is a dedicated supporter of JewelGirls and traveled in 2008/2009 to personally meet teen women participants of the JewelGirls program in Serbia and Washington, D.C.  To read about her work with FAIR Fund, JewelGirls, and an upcoming JewelGirls documentary with filmmaker Samantha Farinella, read “After Ellen”

“I've learned a lot of things and it's also been eye-opening and depressing and amazing. They put them on drugs, or put them on the street to sell themselves. And a lot of the girls think that that's the only way they can make money because it's the only way they have. It's a vicious cycle. The girls that we have on camera, you'd think some of them would be victims and want people to feel sorry for them. But it's the complete opposite. These girls are so strong and they're survivors. They're like a bunch of bad-ass girls. I would never want to get in a fight with any of them.”– Gabrielle Christian, After Ellen, 11/30/2008

JewelGirls Sponsors:

JewelGirls has been supported by Washington, D.C. bead store Beadazzled as well as the Potomac Bead Company in Alexandria, Virginia.  Foundation support comes from the Empower Foundation, Ramsey Merriam Fund, and the Women’s Reconstruction Fund.

JewelGirls Partners:

ATINA (Serbia), Centre for Youth Integration (Serbia), Covenant House Washington, Future Generation (Bosnia), Sasha Bruce YouthWorks (D.C.) , Romski Zivot (Serbia), ROOF (Russia), UYDEL (Uganda) and the Center for Social Work in Belgrade, Serbia.

JewelGirls
Program
Regions
    Bosnia
    Russia
    Serbia
    Uganda
    Washington, DC

How You Can Help
    Donate
    Sponsor a JewelGirl
    Host a Party
    Become a Sales Rep.

By purchasing and wearing the JewelGirls’ handcrafted pieces, you are supporting a young girl’s chance at a life free from exploitation and violence. For more information on how you can help, click here.

FAIR Fund is currently looking for Sales Advocates to sell JewelGirls jewelry in the Washington, DC and New York areas. As we continue to expand the reach of our program we will be looking for Sales Advocates in additional states and regions. If you are interested, please send us an email at jewelgirls@fairfund.org.