wax pillar candles

Stories that Shine: Women Entrepreneurs in Baghdad and Beyond

14.07.10

Clan tales, Greek tragedies, age-old epics, and fables: stories are person currency, traded between people to forge friendships and alliances, to safeguard cultures and warn against the pernicious cycle of history. Stories pop up like weeds; they persist, they continue.

But what about the stories that come to us not through words woven together by mothers and fathers at bedtime, or images projected as hurried flashes of color on a movie screen? What about the stories we can really hold in our hands? These, though sometimes vulnerable to physical wear and hole, can be just as long lasting and often affect us with the dual power of corporeal and emotional weight.

A candle can be just this sort of tall tale made manifest when one traces the candle back—from wick to wax to mold—to the one who created it. “In each of the candles that I cover,” says Wafa, “a part of my story goes there.” Wafa, an Iraqi widow supporting four children, is one of forty-four women entrepreneurs in Baghdad working with Good fortune Candle , a new social enterprise that invests in women living in distressed areas of the on cloud nine who are enthusiastic to start their own businesses producing distinctive candles for particular and international markets. When you buy a Prosperity Candle, the sturdy pillar does more than yearn bright: it comes with the name of the woman who made it, so that each woman may have the chance to tattle her story.

Source: The Women's International Perspective