Woven with Hope

At Woven With Hope, we work with Arab women in North Africa to design and produce handmade woven home goods and accessories. We officially launched in 2020 in response to years of research and experience among a marginalized tribal group. Recently, we have also invited a few men to join us as we began to add leather products to our selection. Our focus and our goal is to raise up families, specifically seeking to empower the women of our community.

For many nomadic peoples across North Africa, women traditionally contributed to the society through their skills in weaving. When the tribes settled in the 1900s, this ancient knowledge was gradually lost, and women lost some of their voice and influence in the family. Today, although many families in our rural neighborhood are struggling to get by, most women are still discouraged from seeking work outside the home due to the conservative culture.

At Woven With Hope, our goal is to provide women with support and training to re-learn the beautiful art of weaving. We go to women in their homes to provide that training and we enable them to complete all their work within their homes as well. As an artisan begins to earn money, she also earns respect within her home and community, allowing her to prioritize her children’s education and her family’s health.

In the past few years, we’ve watched:

• Mothers find community with our other weavers.
• Family members receiving needed medical care.
• Daughters pursuing educational opportunities their mothers never had.
• Artisans embracing their creative spirit.
• Knowledge again passing down through generations.
• And so much more! 

Our hope is that these small changes would build. We hope that the women and families we have the privilege of working with would get to see lasting positive impact. We hope that their children would receive a better education and, therefore, more employment opportunities. We hope that these families would serve as examples in their communities of creativity and perseverance. We hope that little girls would dream bigger dreams—that they too would dare to hope.