In more recent years, I have been working with women who want to break out of the mold–do more than they have done before and be more valuable to their families and their community.  Most of the ones I worked with were shy for good reason.  They lacked the ability to do things others valued.  Since this project began, quite a few have managed to move forward on their own.

Initially my work focused on women who wanted to gain a skill that they could use to bring in income.  A few who needed something more basic than job training wanted to learn to read and write.  Later I set up after school tutoring sessions for children and some women who needed specific training in English as a second language.  I usually handled all the English classes while others taught different classes.

My audience was always women, because those were the ones seeking job skills and personal communication skills.  A few men helped with the afterschool tutoring, but mostly my job has been to coordinate the ladies in such projects as learning tailoring, basket weaving, crochet, embroidery, knitting and even quilting for the sake of thrift.

Public speaking does not bring in any money, but it brings ladies together for socialization and edification. Quite often I give talks for women’s groups.  As an outgrowth of that project, I help other women who also want to learn to speak in public.  That idea has grown, until I frequently find myself not only planning the sessions, but outlining the speeches for everyone who is willing to participate.  Recently they have been able to do more of that themselves.

When I started my first blog, I rationalized that I should put some of those lessons I have already prepared online.  Ladies who need a good topic for a lesson could search the files for ideas they find interesting and go from there. Now I am testing still another WordPress.com theme and its sidebar offerings to see if it might be more suitable to my purposes.  I still like the idea of making my blog useful to those who are searching for lessons, tutorials or patterns. Later, I may add a few quilting projects and pictures of the finished baskets, crochet and embroidery that the ladies have done.  One or two have really made progress with hand-made clothing for their children.

Don’t hold your breath because I am learning very slowly how to really set up a blog.

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