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'Eternal Threads' benefits Indian women
When Linda Egle of Palisade first traveled to India in 1988 on a missions trip with her home church in Lakewood, Colo., she went with the purpose of helping to establish a children's education program.
In the 14 intervening years, she has revisited India annually as the children's ministry, "India's Child" that first drew her became a reality, with 65 children enrolled in the ongoing ministry today.
That ministry created another hunger in Linda's heart as she watched the women of India struggle with devastating poverty. Often, the women would be forced to leave their children home alone to go to work in the rice fields for income to meet basic daily needs.
"I wanted to do something to help these women," said Egle. With each visit she witnessed the cycle of poverty, the struggle the women faced each day, just to exist.
Enter the "Sofi Bag," named for a little girl who carried her lunch to school in a bag of crocheted fishnet.
Egle discovered that some women in the rural villages of Andhra Pradesh, a state in Southeast India, were crocheting bags using plastic fishnet twine and selling them in local markets. The bags were colorful and durable.
"Hoseable," explained Egle. "Because they're made from plastic fishnet twine, you can take the garden hose to them."
Egle saw a market in the United States for the bags, and founded "Eternal Threads Inc." two-and one-half years ago.
"It seems to be a fit," she said. "All along I had been looking for some way to help these women, and here was a way to help them help themselves using skills they already had." Through the assistance of project coordinators in India, Eternal Threads Inc. provides the women with the twine and with design plans for five different sized bags.
Instruction is offered to any one who wants to participate and the women can produce as many or as few bags as they are able, and are paid for each piece upon completion.
"The project already involves 175 women in several remote villages," said Egle. The materials are delivered on an auto-rickshaw with completed bags brought in on the return trip.
"Every one, including the rickshaw driver, is excited about the project," said Egle.
No one more so than Egle herself. Her hope to find a way to minister to these women in a way that would improve their lives at a very basic level, has become for her, not only an outreach, but a way of doing business that helps others to be able to do more for themselves.
"The best form of charity," said Egle, "is helping people to help themselves, giving them self-respect and empowerment." Though most of the women involved live in remote villages, there are approximately 20 women who live in a slum area in Bhimavaram where there simply was no room in their homes to work.
"These are one room shanties," Linda said, "It's hard to explain just how primitive the conditions can get."
The project coordinators located a site where the women can meet and work together. They have dubbed the site "Esther's Sewing Center" in memory of Linda's mother, longtime Palisade resident Esther Egle, who died in February of this year.
"They told me about it and hoped maybe my mom wouldn't mind," Linda said with a smile. "She would have loved it!"
Egle recently received a shipment of 272 bags for the U.S. market. Over the next several weeks, she will travel to various locations, bags in hand, finding marketplaces across the region for the wares of the women of India.
Some of her destinations include the Applejack Festival in Nebraska City, York College, a world missions project in Abilene, Texas, and a ladies retreat in Omaha. She will also have a booth at Norris Park during Heritage Days.
The benefits of the ministry are adding up. The women report that the opportunity to make this income has allowed them to send their children to school, to buy medicine and more nutritious foods for their families and to stay at home and work while taking care of their children. Ninety percent of the women participating have opened up a savings account for the first time in their lives.
Eternal Threads is in the "hope" business according to the company's mission statement. Its purpose is to help women and their families, and is self-funded through wholesale/retail sales.
For more information on Eternal Threads Inc., or on the India's Child mission project, contact Linda at (308) 285-3504; via email at ethreads@gpcom.net or by mail at PO Box 231, Palisade, NE 69040.