The Humble Origins of Mindful Diamond
The story of Mindful Diamond begins with a mission inspired by my mother. As a single woman, she moved from India to the USA to take on the American business world – no prior experience to her name. Her drive to succeed was as strong as her desire to give her three children the greatest possible life. With only $80 to her name, she began a small-scale gemstone business in 1985. Despite setbacks and hardships along the way, her determination allowed her small business to eventually grow into a highly successful jewelry chain.
Her successes enabled her to travel the world and experience many different cultures and people, including the poorly treated women of Sierra Leone. When I think of these women, I think back to my mother. I think about how these women are unfairly denied the right to find success as she did, and how much this would disappoint her. Today, her successful business still operates, and Mindful Diamond borrows her story as inspiration to carry out our mission – the creation of beautiful, ethical jewelry, and the empowerment of woman in Sierra Leone.
The Tragic Life of Women in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone has seen a lot of human rights infringement for the past several decades. As a result of both the export of conflict diamonds and the ongoing civil war that they fund, women both young and old have been subject to terrible mistreatment as part of their daily life. Large social and economic costs have wreaked havoc on Sierra Leone and its citizens as a direct result of the diamond trade. Women in Sierra Leone, and young girls in particular, are born into the world already disadvantaged. They are routinely disrespected and mistreated, with little hope for positive change. Society prevents them from pursuing education, employment, opportunities for personal growth and even basic human rights.
Our Mission to Empower the Women of Sierra Leone
My work in the jewelry industry has provided him with a glimpse into the lives of women in Sierra Leone. My thoughts on this are always back to my mother – the struggles she endured, and the opportunities she made for herself to grow and succeed. I reflect on the wonderful life her sacrifices gave
reality of the most brutal 20th century civil war in Sierra Leone. Mariatu tells a very
Women, unfortunately, have been very discriminated against, even in this century. Women are so cruelly thought of that now, women see nothing wrong with mental and physical cruelty towards them. Since the status of women in Africa, is so low, it has caused many men to overpower women…physically. More
The consequences of these abuses result in human pain and suffering. Kristof and WuDunn wanted to inform their audience on the severity of the matter at hand. Through statistical alongside anecdotal evidence, the authors were able to inform their audience on an unfamiliar topic by breaking down the problem into segments while building a personal connection through stories. This reportage exposes the injustices women face and makes a call for change to help this humanitarian
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the recent 2006 film Blood Diamond both depict how it was living in Sierra Leone, Africa during the Civil War in the ‘90’s. While A Long Way Gone focuses on child soldiers and what they had to live and go through for many years, Blood Diamond focuses mainly on how the country is torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections. Both the movie and the book try to tackle major issues by asking the questions: how
From the beginning of the book, Half the Sky, the stories of Srey Rath, the vibrant girl from Cambodia, and Meena Hasina, the courageous mother from India, and other stories like theirs have helped many people understand the tragedies taking place all over the world. Their stories have inspired the authors and many who have read their stories to dive deeper into thought about worldwide issues plaguing many countries, including the United States. The global issues surrounding women’s health in the beginning of this book include the topics of: the three types of abuses, the inaccuracy of the term “sex trafficking”, and the initiatives to stop slavery.
Sierra Leone has been involved in a humungous amount of absurd human rights violations since 1991 when the civil war erupted. This detailed paper on the book, A Long Way Gone, set in Sierra Leone, will create interest by summarizing the memoir through descriptive examples and text on symbolism and imagery. The author of this memoir A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is Ishmael Beah, it's difficult to believe that this is a true and harsh story. You will be learning about Ishmael's resilience and the horrible struggles he faced as a child soldier, while somehow continuing to have hope. Ishmael Beah, 12 at the beginning of this memoir, unexpectedly gets recruited into a time consuming war over blood diamonds, against the rebels as a young child. Ishmael is at a loss, since with his own eyes he viewed not only his loving family, but his whole village as it was horrifically torn down by the dangerous rebels. Ishmael is not physically lonely during the book, but he is emotionally
These women, although they lived in a third world country, have the skill and gumption to go into business for themselves, and “be their own boss”. In the United States, more women have the ability
Imagine leaving everyone and everything you have ever known to go to a new unknown world and make money to help your family. The amount of stress and anxiety might be too much to handle at first. This was the life of many young women from small villages in Nepal, looking to do whatever it takes to keep a roof on their family’s head. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but what these women expected in the work is not what they got. They were sold into sex slavery, unaware on the struggles they would have to endure in their lives.
Women’s privileges in society transformed due to new opportunities that enabled possession of freedom and high esteem. Within Sub-Saharan Africa, if a woman was raised in a blacksmith family, she would enjoy special treatment since she obtained amazing pottery skills. Furthermore,
“…the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Save the Children released a report on their investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of West African refugee children in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Their interviews with 1500 men, women, and children refugees revealed that girls between the ages of 13 and 18 were sexually exploited by male aid workers, many of whom were employed by national and international non-governmental agencies (NGOs) and the UN, and also by UN peacekeepers and community leaders.” (Hynes 2004:
Even though, Kristof realizes the complexity of the problems, the authors still develop on practical ways to aid women. The authors stress the involvement of individuals in human rights matters. To emphasize their point, Kristof interviews a light-skinned black girl from Ethiopia, Woineshet. Woineshet tells the authors that she lived in a rural area where if a young man wants to marry certain girl, but does not have the “bride price” at hand, or the family won’t accept him, he could just kidnap the girl, and then rape her – it is the tradition, says Woineshet. Because women are raped, they will have difficulty marrying anyone else. To make matters worse, Ethiopian law
In every country in Latin America and the Caribbean, women suffer acute discrimination. Often, the discrimination women face is related to social prejudices regarding appropriate patterns of conduct for men and women. This entrenched sex inequality provides the backdrop for the pervasive and widespread human rights violations women face in the region, with little chance of justice. The most pernicious types of women's human rights abuses in the Americas occur in the areas of women's reproductive and sexual health and rights, discrimination and violence against women in the workplace, and violence against women in the home. After decades of dictatorships in some countries, democracy has not meant an end to impunity for violations of women
Sierra Leone is a country with much history. It has many historical sites and great mines that contain so much “treasure”. Its economy is still growing and they’re trying to improve themselves. They’re a diverse country with different ethnic groups and languages but socially and culturally they can agree on the way they eat, what type of music they like, and what they do for fun. This country is unique and is growing from the past to a modern future.
The governments of the developing world encourage and utilize the sex trade industry as a progress strategy to repay millions of dollars of debt to international corporations. There are also economic incentives for the governments of both the exporting and importing countries to ignore the trafficking in women, and the governments are relatively uninterested in the women’s well-being.
Jewellery has been a significant value in our lives for centuries and is often fostered by tradition, cultural background and ethnicity. ‘Amari Kartini,’ a prominent Bali jewellery line, handmade and owned by the traditional Indonesian artisans has extended beyond the realm of adornment to embark on: social customs, stylistic and cultural meanings. Amari Kartini Company has re-invests 70% of its annual profits to achieve it social aim: to branch out into the international financial market. The exotic jewellery line is composed with precious carved gold and unique crystals to symbolise: wealth, power and the reflection of a woman’s desire for natural beauty. Parallel to Dubai, ‘the city of sand to