Founder
Women’s Peace Collection and The Amber Chand Foundation
Williamstown, Massachusetts, US
Connect with Amber on GSO!
GSO: What is the Women’s Peace Collection, and how did it get started?
AC: I founded the Women’s Peace Collection in 2004 as an enterprise that celebrates the creativity, resilience, beauty, and courage of women artisan/entrepreneurs living in the shadows of war, genocide, civil strife and enduring poverty around the world. By offering these talented artisans a market for their products, they are able to earn a dignified livelihood and support their families under extremely challenging circumstances. Connecting these global women to American audiences and in turn, giving our customers a chance to impact their lives through their purchases, reinforced this model, supporting the dignity of women and peace through enterprise.
The company has grown steadily over the past 5 years and now sources handmade gifts from 13 regions of the world, has invested over $250k in women’s craft enterprises and launched signature gifts out of vulnerable regions of the world such as Darfur, Sudan, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Burma,Israel and Palestine.
In founding the company I was also interested in what I came to term as the “feminine paradigm for business” – a model for sustainable and successful businesses that emerged from my own personal experience working in the trenches of my former company – one that ultimately collapsed because it got caught up in an overly aggressive, fast paced, impatient, testosterone-driven model for growth. What I discovered missing was a vital balance between positive masculine principles (drive, directed, goal oriented) and more feminine principles (collaborative, intuitive, relational). The Women’s Peace Collection grew out of this personal interest to consciously create a thoughtful enterprise that incorporated both value systems and principles. It has been truly exciting to see how it does in fact work!
GSO: What are the key issues you focus on?
AC: I focus on regions of the world where women are left to rebuild their lives after some devastation—whether it is social and political unrest, a natural disaster, or crushing poverty. These women have been wounded and abandoned by the exigencies of life and need an opportunity to heal, regain their self confidence and support their families. When you hear staggering statistics, for instance, 85% victims of wars are women and children, you realize the significance of women single-handedly trying to support, educate and provide for their families—the importance of investing in women is a vital foundation for peaceful societies.
Each gift in the Collection – whether it is a beautiful bracelet made in Afghanistan, a luminary candle made by Israelis and Palestinians or a basket made by Rwandan women – is in fact a poignant expression of these women’s hopes and dreams for a secure future.
In working in these vulnerable areas of the world, it is the call of “Do not forget us” that compels me to act!
GSO: Why are these issues so important to you?
AC: As a young woman of 21, I became a refugee, fleeing Uganda during Idi Amin’s tyrannical dictatorship. It was a terrifying time—everything was taken away from us, as Indians living in the country. Our homes were confiscated; our possessions destroyed. Everything we knew to be safe and secure abandoned. It was an incredibly painful time, as you can imagine. In launching The Womens Peace Collection and in doing this work today, I feel that I am healing myself from the wounds of my past while helping these courageous women heal from theirs. It is a symbiotic relationship, where I feel deeply connected to the women with whom I work, bound by the resilient stories of our lives. I feel tremendously privileged to be doing this amazing work!
GSO: What projects are you currently working on?
AC: I am working on many projects, but the three that are most significant currently are:
- A peace building initiative between Palestinians and Israelis through the Jerusalem
Candle of Hope and Peace/Prosperity Candle—a beautiful collaboration resulting in lovely luminary candles that women on either side of the conflict have created as an expression of their hopes for peace. I have also just started working with a wonderful organization called Beyond Words, who are working deeply on healing between Palestinian and Israelis. The vessels of peace in the Collection are symbolic of this work. - A basket weaving initiative in Darfur, Sudan at one of the largest IDP camps in the region, where over 100 talented weavers have now created 3,300 baskets for the Collection. there, the spirit of enterprise is thriving, which is unbelievable when you consider the dismal conditions the women find themselves in. The Darfur Peace Baskets are extraordinary expressions of the women’s creativity, fierce determination to rebuild their lives and deep desire to be valued for who they are.
- I recently helped launch a company with my business partner called Prosperity Candle. It is in pilot phase right now, but the mission of the company is to partner with women entrepreneurs in distressed regions of the world through candle-making enterprises. The first Prosperity Candle will be launched in the US this summer, created by Iraqi women in the safety of their kitchens. You can view our work at www.prosperitycandle.com.
GSO: What kinds of challenges do you face in doing your work?
AC: The challenges of a small enterprise that works within a large global network can be great, but not necessarily insurmountable. I run the company from my dining room table and have outsourced much of the operations so that I can spend time coordinating the efforts, speaking about this work to audiences around the United States and internationally, initiating strategic partnerships and designing and developing products. It’s a nimble structure for a business, which I like.
Logistics can be difficult, but in many of these fragile areas I have partnered with international organizations who are equally committed to supporting women and offer me the on-the-ground support, which is critical. Without them, I could not do this work.
GSO: How do you use social networking and new media in your own activism?
AC: I love your term “activist,” since I don’t really refer to myself as an activist! I do see myself however as a mother, a peace builder, a global citizen and a refugee-entrepreneur. These identities inform everything I do and inspire my work.
I am very interested in the power of social networking and new media in part because it feels so much more honest and transparent than traditional forms of marketing and because it focuses on the conversation! But this is all relatively new to me, and I am still finding my way in the world of Twitter and Facebook. I do have a blog and am on Facebook. Joining a community like Global Sisters is wonderful, and I look forward to engaging with others in this online community.
GSO: Do you have any tips or advice for GSO members who are involved with, or would like to become involved in, the work you do?
AC: It’s taken me five years of hard work to get the Collection to this stage—so my advice is always, if you want to start a business like this, be patient. Take your time, and grow steadily and thoughtfully. The success of any business is the relationships you create and nurture. This takes time.
Don’t doubt your ability to create something of value in the world. Yes You Can!
GSO: How can GSO Members become more involved with Women’s Peace Collection?
AC: You can check us out at . Of course, I would love you to tell your friends about it, if you like what you see. Pass it on.
GSO: If you could change one thing that would have a dramatic impact on women’s lives around the world, what would it be?
AC: I would change the cultural/social context that seriously impacts women around the world—one which is oppressive, demeaning, and violates a woman’s sense of self, her birth right to be a fully realized human being.
No matter how determined a woman is to succeed or to support her family or to gain a standing in her community – if she is constantly faced with a patriarchal system that controls, dominates and ultimately devours her – she is merely a prisoner, held in enduring servitude. Cultures that perpetuate this archaic paradigm are unfortunately part of our world today, and my dream is that we will one day have a world which deeply honors, respects, and celebrates the Feminine Principle in all of us, men and women alike!
GSO: Which GSO member would you most like to meet or partner with?
AC: I have great respect for Ruchira Gupta and what she has done. I would enjoy meeting her.
GSO: Where is the most inspirational place you have ever traveled to or visited?
AC: I have traveled to many places, but probably the most inspirational was Rwanda, which I visited in 2003, nine years after the genocide. It was here that I learned the story of a group of Hutu and Tutsi women who had survived the genocide and chose to heal themselves by weaving the traditional Rwandan baskets, sitting on a porch together. That vision of women in circle weaving a basket, reed by reed, so inspired me that I launched the first Rwandan Peace Baskets in the United States that year. Subsequently, I journeyed to the Middle East to see if we could bring Palestinian and Israeli women together in a similar way—choosing to invoke women’s hands as a force for peace.
Amber Chand is the Founder of The Women’s Peace Collection, a social enterprise that supports women’s micro-enterprises primarily in regions of conflict and post-conflict. Her company offers high quality, meaningful gifts created by talented craftswomen who are rebuilding their lives in the shadows of war, genocide, civil strife and crippling poverty. As a refugee-entrepreneur, Amber is keenly aware of the challenges that women (and men) face when they have lost their possessions and homes.
Tags: activist
