Project Lydia is an economic development project that lifts women out of the worst of poverty, restores purpose, hope, and dignity.

The Lovin’ Soap Project provides women with the skills and knowledge to make soap as a micro-business to support their families. As a result, women gain the ability to use excess soap from the process for hygiene. In addition, with their comprehension of how soaps are formulated, what types of ingredients are necessary, and the instruction provided by the Lovin’ Soap Project on local sourcing, women are empowered to make their own, inexpensive yet effective soaps to help maintain basic health and sanitation.

PROJECT LYDIA began in 2009 by missionaries, Cliff and Julie Pash and is an expansion of Advancing the Kingdom Ministries which serves Uganda, East Africa. The project helps local widows and abandoned women overcome adversity and thrive in every area of their lives. PROJECT LYDIA teaches skills, provides a spiritual support system, and opens doors for the women to support their families. The women meet weekly to work on projects together which are sold around the world.

Projects include: recycled paper bead necklaces, baskets, and authentic Ugandan dolls with a story of a local woman of courage who also overcame adversity. Many women lives have been transformed through PROJECT LYDIA as they gain resources to buy seed for their gardens, send their children to school, purchase medical care, and improve their housing. -www.projectlydia.org

And now, with the help of Benjamin and Amanda of Lovin’ Soap Project, they will be able to add soapmaking to their empowerment and economic development toolbox!

Not only will they be able to make soap for their families and community they will be able to sell the soap to earn much needed income.

Soap is an important and vital weapon to use against hygiene-preventable diseases including diarrhea and pneumonia. Without the right tools – water and soap – children easily die from these diseases every single day and in numbers that we can’t quite comprehend.

Soap and Hygiene By the Numbers

In some regions, soap can cost an entire day’s wages. It’s expensive, valuable, and hard to come by. Because purchasing a bar of soap to wash hands is simply not an option, people become sick, and certain populations, like children, are especially vulnerable to the disease that results.

• 1.4 million deaths can be prevented each year by simply washing the hands with soap.
• Since 2009, 7 million children have died due to hygiene-preventable disease.
• Children under five who wash with soap can reduce their risk of pneumonia by 50%.
• Diarrhea mortality rates can be reduced by 44% by washing the hands with soap.
• Infant mortality rates decrease by up to 19% when birth attendants wash their hands prior to delivering babies.
• Infant mortality rates decrease by up to 44% when mothers wash their hands prior to touching their babies.

Empowering Women and Providing Economic Opportunity

Women Reinvest More in Their Communities

Providing women the means to run businesses is the path out of poverty for developing nations. Research shows economic growth for women has an extremely important effect. In fact, women reinvest as much as 90% of their income in their families and communities. According to USAID, one in five girls in developing countries who enroll in primary school never finish because when family resources for schooling become scarce, they are reserved for boys. However, women spend more of their earned income on food, healthcare, and education for themselves and their children, including girls. And when 10% more girls go to school, a country’s GDP increases on average by 3%. If we give women the means to earn a living, they will invest it in their daughters as well, helping nations rise out of poverty.

By earning an income, women can:
• Feed their families
• Educate their children, especially girls
• Access and pay for medical care
• Attain a sense of dignity
• Achieve an elevated status in the household
• Create a legacy to pass on through knowledge of a trade
• Obtain a measure of success and prosperity
With your support, we are making an impact!

We need your help to work with the women of Project Lydia!

The Lovin’ Soap Projects’ mission and goals are significant, far-reaching and quite literally global.  But every global goal reached, such as the momentous and weighty trip to Uganda this summer, requires the help from our community far and wide.  Our organization is proudly run off of the gracious and supportive donations we receive from the public.

The Lovin’ Soap Project is a solution-oriented organization that solves the problem of poverty, especially as it pertains to women, through the artisan craft of soapmaking.  Help us solve this problem by donating to the Lovin’ Soap Project.

Your donation goes directly to the cost of supplies, materials, equipment and travel.  Your contribution puts us on the ground in front of the women that have the potential to change their livelihoods, their families their community, and our world.  And moving forward, please consider becoming an active participant in global change for women by giving a recurrent monthly donation of as little as $10.  Thank you for your support.

Thank you for your support!

Amanda & Benjamin