Empowered Women International

Graduates from EWI's Basic Jewelry and Entrepreneurship Course, April 2010

June 2010 — EWI releases a new entrepreneurship training curriculum in jewelry and felting with both basic and advanced levels. These five-week courses, led by experienced instructors, teach design, production, and basic market readiness and entrepreneurship skills, such as pricing, packaging, communication and marketing. The courses are specifically designed to teach immigrant and refugee women marketable skills in a short period of time.

They have been added in the past year in response to the increasing number of EWI beneficiaries who speak limited English, are at-risk populations (the homeless and survivors of domestic violence), and/or do not have an arts background. These women struggle to fulfill their basic needs, and EWI helps them by providing critical market readiness skills and empowering them to become self-sufficient.

Check out our new training courses and apply for one today! Scholarships may be available for low-income immigrant and refugee women.

To learn more, or to refer an immigrant or refugee woman to our program, email Marga.

April 29, 6:30-8:30 pm – Gold Works of Alexandria sponsors a Trunk Show  to benefit Empowered Women International (EWI) and help immigrant women gain foothold in the marketplace and our community. Proceeds from the Trunk Show benefit the artists and EWI’s entrepreneurial programs. The art sale will continue on Friday, April 30th, Noon -8:30 PM and Saturday, May 1st, 11:00 AM-6:00 PM. Please come by to see our unique artworks and find one a kind gifts that support women.

More

Sat., April 24, 2-3 pm
Montgomery College Cafritz Arts Center, Room 101
930 King Street, Silver Spring MD 20910

Art and Remembrance: a Film Presentation and Lecture by Bernice Steinhardt and Rachel Glass. Illuminating the experience of war, oppression and injustice through the power and passion of personal narrative in art.

Esther Nisenthal Krinitz’s haunting memories, nearly 40 years after surviving the Holocaust, led her to create extraordinary works of art using the techniques of embroidery, applique, and stitched narrative. Told in more than 30 remarkable panels with vivid colors and striking details, Esther’s story describes a young girl’s harrowing escape from the Nazis to freedom in America. Meet Esther through a short film by acclaimed film director Lawrence Kasdan and a lecture by Bernice Steinhardt and Rachel Glass, Esther’s daughter and granddaughter.

Esther’s Story
ESTHER NISENTHAL KRINITZ, along with her sister Mania, were the only members of their family, and among the few Jews in their Polish village, to survive the Holocaust. At the age of 15, Esther refused the Nazi order for the Jews to report to a nearby railroad station for relocation. She and her sister separated from their family and never saw them again. In 1977, at the age of 50, Esther Nisenthal Krinitz began creating works of fabric art to depict her stories of survival. Over a 20-year period she created a collection of 36 needlework and fabric collage pictures which are now on public exhibition.

Sat., April 24, 1-2 pm

Montgomery College Cafritz Arts Center, Room 101

930 King Street, Silver Spring MD 20910

Tales of Courage, Hope and Transformation: Extraordinary Journeys of Women Empowered Through Art, Panel of Discussion. Facilitator: Marga Fripp, EWI President

Guest Panelists: Hazami Barmada, Public & Cultural Diplomacy – US/Arab Affairs, Vera Oye’ Yaa-Anna, Artist, Storyteller and Activist, Sushmita Mazumdar, Writer, Designer and Book Artist

Barmada is the Founder and President of the American Muslim Interactive Network (AMIN), a grassroots organization that hosts an array of social, educational, and volunteer initiatives that promote intra/interfaith understanding and dialogue. Additionally she serves as an advisor and board member of several non-profit organizations. In 2008, she was named a Muslim Leader of Tomorrow by the American Society for Muslim Advancement.  Her grassroots initiatives and events  have received recognition in major media outlets.

Vera Oye’ Yaa-Anna is a Liberian-born artist who transports her audience to Africa through interactive storytelling, dance and drumming. This is her seventh residency as a member of Smith Farm’s team of artists-in-residence. Using the transformative power of storytelling, she teaches inmates how to craft and tell their “illuminating and inspiring” life stories to ease their reentry into everyday life. Through dance, yoga and storytelling she engages cancer patients and their caregivers in uplifting the soul while dealing with the challenges of illness.

Sushmita Mazumdar is a writer, graphic designer, book artist, and founder of Handmade Storybooks.

She writes stories for children, based on her experience growing up in India, and makes them into books by hand. She teaches art education programs for children as well as adult groups, to encourage storytelling and to pass on cultural heritage from one generation to the next. She received her BFA in Applied Arts from Bombay University, India, and has been in the United States since 1999. Sushmita also volunteers as a docent with the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art in Washington. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her family.