Thursday 3 October 2013
Venue: One Marylebone, London NW1
mothers2mothers is an NGO employing and empowering mothers living with HIV who work as Mentor Mothers in health centres and communities to provide essential health education and psychosocial support to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child, and keep mothers and their families healthy.
I was asked if I would like to come up with an idea for a table centre that reflected sub-Saharan Africa.
I managed to find the most beautiful papier-mâché bowls made by HIV-positive women and mothers, supported by the non-profit Wola Nani in South Africa and supplied by Exclusive Roots, a UK importer of fair trade craft products.
South African heather (Erica) in a papier-mâché bowl from Cape Town
I found Trewidden Nursery based in the western tip of Cornwall, supplying Chelsea gold medal award winning South African plants. They supplied me with South African heathers (Erica), which I used to plant the bowls. Spanish moss completed an arrangement that I hope in a small way captured the feel and landscape of South Africa.
South African heather (Erica) in a papier-mâché bowl from Cape Town
The arrangements were sold at the end of the evening, the bowls making a wonderful decoration for the home and the heathers perhaps re-planted in the garden or a patio pot.