Our Very First Cards

Last week the boys made these cards.

Initially, we wanted to see just what the lads thought of the process of designing and producing items in paper and hoped those who would be most suitable to be team leaders in this medium would come to the fore.

Everyone loved it!

We are now using the samples for local market research on card buying habits, while secretly hoping to hear from you guys out there, on your ideas for other designs and styles!

Calling all you creative types...

What is Urban Cowboy?
The Urban Cowboy concept is simple; this blog here in Sudan, will link street boys here with creative professionals, like you, cross the world. We will then get ideas, designs and tutorials from you, in various different crafts techniques, allowing the street boys to make unique gift and household products to sell here in Sudan.

Do you specialise in crafts like- woodwork, metalwork, sewing, paper products or leather goods design?
Urban Cowboy needs people like you, who will give the team of boys ideas and designs to make here in Sudan. Your tutorials will then be translated into Arabic, so the boys (16 and up) can learn step by step to not only make unique products but learn valuable trade skills, which they in turn will pass on to other boys at the centre.

What is the Bridge of Hope? (for more detailed info click this header)
The Bridge of Hope Charity (www.bohsudan.org) is a holistic project for the street boys etching a living on the streets of Khartoum. Since its inception in November 2003, Barbara, the director and manager, has, with her local team, launched the pre-school learning centre designed to bring the boys up to school level, a drop in/feeding centre, a residential annex and a sports class for older boys.
For 2007, Barbara's hope is to achieve sustainability and self sufficiency within the project.

Who are the street boys of Khartoum? (for more detailed info click this header)
Tens of thousands of Southern Sudanese young men and boys are unlucky enough to struggle on the streets of Khartoum, navigating the pitfalls of disease, despair and chemical addiction. Isolated and displaced by Sudan's 22 year civil war, little education and racial discrimination, they face little chance of ever finding gainful employment in a city already burgeoning with the unemployed.
Although many of the younger boys are now attending the Bridge of Hope learning centre or are financed by the charity to attend local schools, the older boys (16-24) have sadly missed their chance of most education. They need a trade, a skill, something to allow them a small income, training and most importantly, a future.

The Urban Cowboy Project (for more detailed info click this header)
Urban Cowboy aims to combat the perils of unemployment through the sale of modern and currently unavailable household goods and gifts for the local market and Ex-pats. Eventually it is hope that we will even attract interest from international buyers. This will enable the young men of Khartoum's streets, to earn a living in Sudan’s increasingly competitive economy.

Both Sudan’s thriving economic sector and the international fascination with this richly cultured nation, bode well for the sale of quality products including interior household products, gifts and cards.

With funding for tools and materials now approved, Urban Cowboy is well on in the process of establishing vocational training workshops for woodwork, pottery decoration, leatherwork, sewing, paper goods and graphic design; using where ever possible, locally sourced and recycled materials.

Its not just the street boys who will gain...
As Barbara explains, “By using local materials we can, in turn, support other small and valuable local projects in their successes, like the Yous Rittena School for the disabled, which will supply the recycled/handmade paper and the pottery to the project”. The Khartoum Tannery is another locally run and raw product supplier whose skins are all Sudanese and of the highest standards. But sourcing local materials is not just good for the local economy, it also ensures that prices and supply lines will remain much more stable unlike the wildly inflated cost of imported goods.

What we need you to do...

• Firstly, Urban Cowboy needs a logo, something fresh and funky that will become synonymous with our high quality products, yet still explores the boys' rich African culture and its intrinsic links to the cattle they keep.
• Why not visit both the Bridge of Hope website (www.bohsudan.org) and the Urban Cowboy blog (urbancowboysudan.blogspot.com) to get a better idea of who we are and what we are doing here in Sudan.
• Even better, why not link us to your blog/website?
• Or copy and paste this entry into your blog so Urban Cowboy can start reaching the wider creative world.
• Do you have some great design ideas for us?
  Sudan is pretty much closed to all western media, and its impossible to find design or fashion magazines, the internet is heavily censored and satellite television is only available to a small elite, but people want modern fashionable gifts and household items. Being so effectively isolated from modern design we need your help to bring it to us.
  Got a great tote bag design that you know will look fab in organic Sudanese cotton? Well, we want it!
  What about great greeting card designs? Or some original artwork we can replicate on our cards?
  Don't be shy, drop us a line and change someone's life today.

Urban Cowboy – Sudan’s Newest Ethical Brand

Recent article from Al Bab Lifestyle Magazine

I meet up with Barbara from the Bridge of Hope Charity for what I think will be an interview about her new project and some lunch, now however, I seem to be rummaging through a table laden with craft, household and gift products from across the world. Amongst her spoils are- beautiful handmade Maori greeting cards from New Zealand and wooden educational toys from Kenya; in fact, pretty much everything from African soft toys to handmade paper lampshade designs.

Over coffee we discuss her product ideas which, she intends the older boys at the Bridge of Hope Centre in Haj Yousif, to soon, start making. But between now and then the items in front of us, need to be selected, taken apart, measured, redesigned and remodeled by the street boys, entirely from re-cycled and local materials.

The Bridge of Hope Charity has come a long way since its inception in November 2003. In addition to the pre-school learning centre designed to bring the boys up to school level, a drop in/feeding centre, a residential annex and a sports class for older boys, the centre is adding some significant new income generating projects for 2007.

Barbara’s hope is that 2007 will be the year the centre moves towards self-sufficiency.
And so far, it looks like it might just happen.

To date, Sayga Flour Mills have very kindly pledged a bakery to benefit not only the lads chosen for baking vocational training, but, the whole Haj Yousif area as they will now have locally made fresh bread every day. The UN mission in Sudan has also accessed their Quick impact Project Fund to build a new purpose built learning centre on site.

The making of gift and household products is another very new and unique grassroots initiative currently being launched by the centre to provide vocational training and job opportunities for the older boys. Called Urban Cowboy, it aims to empower and employ some of the former street children through the production and sale of their products.

With funding for tools and materials now approved, Urban Cowboy is well on in the process of establishing vocational training workshops for woodwork, pottery decoration, leatherwork and graphic design; using where possible local and recycled materials.
As Barbara explains, “By using local materials we can, in turn, support other projects in their success, like the Yous Rittena School for handicapped children in Omderman, which will supply the recycled/handmade paper and the pottery to the project”.

She hopes by sourcing local materials, the prices and supply lines will remain stable unlike costly imports.

“The only thing really missing now is a volunteer coordinator to run the project”, says Barbara. “We really need someone with a business background and some creative flair”.

The concept is simple; the blog (web based diary) will link with creative professionals cross the world, in each discipline who will give the team ideas and designs. Tutorials will then be made and translated into Arabic, so the boys can understand and learn to make the unique products.

The Urban Cowboy project aims to combat the perils of unemployment through the sale of modern and currently unavailable household goods and gifts for the local market and Ex-pats. This will then enable our young men to earn a living in Sudan’s increasingly competitive economy.