Happy Women's Day!

Today is the 100th International Women's Day.

Since we work in Zimbabwe, we are particularly interested in the girls and women of Africa and how they can change the world. When you educate a girl in Africa she is less likely to get HIV/AIDS, she is more likely to have a small and healthy family, she will earn much more money and be able to pass those benefits onto her children.

A woman can end the cycle of poverty. That's why we choose to work with women artists in Zimbabwe. The women of Zimbabwe often care for many children and live on less than $1 a day. They are often unable to pay for school for their children and struggle to pay for food and medical care.

So today, please consider purchasing from Zimbags and support a woman artist in Zimbabwe who are working hard to break the cycle of poverty with their children. Celebrate the strength and courage of women by supporting some incredible artists in Zimbabwe!

And we have made it even easier for you by offering 10% off any Zimbag featuring artwork of women.


We can bag poverty in this generation. And ending poverty never looked so good.

-The Happy Bag Elves

A Step in the Right Direction is a Reason to Dance.

Researchers look to Zimbabwe for ways to reduce the HIV/AIDS infection rate elsewhere. There has been as steep decline in the infection rate from 1997 to 2007 and researchers are looking for the reasons why.

The examination of why HIV prevalence in the country fell from 29 percent in 1997 to 16 percent in 2007 was carried out by epidemiologists at Imperial College, London, and Harvard University School of Public Health, Cambridge, in partnership with Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health, the UN Population Fund and UNAIDS.

Though HIV prevalence remains high by African standards, the fall in HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe is the largest seen anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa, researchers said.

"Very few other countries around the world have seen reductions in HIV infection, and of all African nations Zimbabwe was thought least likely to see such a turnaround. This is why there was such an urgent need to understand its direct and underlying causes."

In diminishing conditions on nearly every level, Zimbabwe has made huge strides in reducing the infection rate -- think of what this could mean for other countries in similar situations...what hope!!

-The Happy Bag Elves

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

The Numbers


11,000,000: There are over 11 million children in Sub Saharan Africa who have been orphaned by AIDS.

4,000,000: The UN predicts the number of people needing urgent food assistance will increase to 4 million in the first three months of 2008.

5000%: Zimbabwe’s current inflation rate, a world record.

90%: Percentage of Zimbabwe’s population is living on less than $1 a day – this often means they are living on pennies.

70%: Percentage of deaths in children under 5 in Zimbabwe that are caused by HIV/AIDS.

35: The life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe. 35 and falling.

20%: In Zimbabwe, more than 20% of young women are infected with HIV/AIDS. Poverty perpetuates this disease as women turn to the sex industry for money, contraceptives become scare, medicines are too expensive, mothers do not get prenatal care, education is rare, and sexual violence rates increase. HIV/AIDS is then passed onto their children.

1%: At this moment, only a fraction of 1% of the population can afford one meal a day.

But the statistics only get us so far.

Millions of people in Zimbabwe need your help: finding a solution to their hunger, healing their ailments, earning a living wage, and mending their families, community, and country.

These women, and other women worldwide, deserve to live past their 35th birthday.

It is the right of every person to earn a living wage. It is the right of every person to have access to healthcare. It is the right of every person to live.

Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty, which robs people of the freedom to satisfy hunger, or to achieve sufficient nutrition, or to obtain remedies for treatable illnesses, or the opportunity to be adequately clothed or sheltered, or to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities.
Amartya Sen
“Development as Freedom”

There is no doubt that the only correct way to love the poor will be to struggle for their liberation. Their liberation will consist, first and foremost, in their liberation at the most elementary level – that of their simple, physical life, which is what is at stake in the present situation.
Father Sobrino

God is inflexibly opposed to evil in any form. The root of the downfall and the misfortune of humanity comes from the deliberate opposition to truth, which is the fundamental reality of God and of human beings.
Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi