Obama Bracelets: A Profound Story of Hope

The Obama bracelet was born in the hearts of some very special women in Ruai, Kenya. Initially, this energy of hope was awakened with the start of a new micro-lending program called Hope Bank. The inspiration for this project and the funds to carry it out are provided by members of the philanthropic for-profit enterprise, Humanity Unites Brilliance.

Watch this inspiring three minute video about the women from the Masai and the Kukuyu tribes who, once enemies, now work side-by-side to bring hope to the world.

Thirteen single mothers were living in extreme poverty, without a means to take care of themselves or their families. With the microloan, these woman began creating beaded crafts to sell in the fair trade HUB Global Marketplace. Each woman’s personal story is one of tragedy, loss and struggle; but they continue to step forward each day with great faith, profound hope, and a guiding dream of something better. When these women were asked to bead the word “Hope” into a bracelet, they instead interpreted this to mean “that which brings them hope” and Barack Obama was that person. He symbolizes great hope for the Kenyan people who describe him as a “son of the soil."

Kongelo, the Obama's impoverished ancestral home in western Kenya, is a remote Aids-ravaged, dirt-poor hamlet of brick houses with corrugated iron roofs, where barefoot children, goats and hens roam free. Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, declared a public holiday on Thursday November 6^th, in honor of Obama's election victory. When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom's dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.'s children. President Elect Obama's Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982, when he turned 21.

Not only is this historic Obama bracelet a great memento of an extraordinary new beginning for the United States, but the purchase of one bracelet can fund a microloan that helps a woman create a life, and a community of women succeed together. This bracelet of profound hope helps these struggling women put food on the table and books in the hands of their children. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for these bracelets to be handmade and shipped to you, as the demand for them is as great as the hope that they offer.

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We Are The Ones-It's About You (Obama Speech Remix)

I am in the midst of the exhilarating feeling of experiencing a dream of possibility on the cusp of being launched into the world. Hopefully this will inspire people everywhere to begin to believe that we as individuals and collectively can have an impact on healing our world. Each and every one of us has something to offer. In my own experience, there have been many times when I’ve neglected to follow through on what seemed at the time to be a brilliant idea. Perhaps it wasn’t received well, or it seemed too much of a struggle to push it forward. A week ago, I embraced the following possibility that was set before me. Here are the exact words from a middle of the night journal writing which describes the conception of the idea for the use of my song, “We Are The Ones”, and merging it with the energy of hope and promise I had heard in Barrack Obama’s speech two days before.

From Journal August 30th, 2008

Internal voices woke me up. They showed me “We Are The Ones”, with Obama’s speech interwoven as a viral video. There were pictures from the Democratic Convention especially emphasizing the “We”. I saw specific images for different parts of the song. “We are the hands” showed people waving the signs of change. For “We are the eyes” people were crying for hope and “We are the fire” depicted the fireworks coming out of the stadium. I heard the chorus “We Are The Ones” set to visuals of the huge stadium and the cheering. And the most moving part of Obama’s speech was set over the guitar solo. YES!!

The next morning I took sound bites from the speech and an audio version of the song and began to imagine how they would fit together. I began to search the web for compelling photos from the Democratic Convention. My partner Keith Ranney and I then went into his media studio where the video began to weave Obama’s inspirational and profound message with a song that describes how it really is up to us to create the world we want to live in. Barack Obama repeats, “It’s about you!”. My song resounds with, “We Are The Ones”. For the past several days Keith has been researching the tech side of how to get this information to the most people effectively, while I have continued my music gigs and employment as a substitute teacher.

We are going to launch the video on September 8th.