Bedouin Beaded Bags

Description

These beautifully beaded and embroidered bags are made by the Bedouin women living in remote communities in South Sinai, Egypt, close to where St Catherine’s Monastery nestles below Mount Sinai. The project is co-ordinated by a Bedouin who travels by camel to distribute my colour designs and the materials to the women and collect the finished bags. All monies go directly to the project which uses any profits for social projects and emergency medical assistance. The Bedouin communities are suffering due to the negative impact of terrorism on the tourist trade and need our support more than ever.

The photos of Mount Sinai were taken during my two pilgrimages to St Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai in 2007 and 2012, when my Bedouin guides took me to their village and explained the plight that their tribes are facing. I left determined to support them and, with the help of a wonderful British woman who was married to a Bedouin tribesmen and is able to travel safely to the Sinai to collect the bags, I am now able to do so. The Bedouin women prefer not to be photographed.

Available in all the colours of The Philosophia Wheel, these fairly-traded bags are perfect for conscious festival fashionistas or for storing your seasonal altar items and medicine bags. Pair them with their matching Indian scarves which also double as seasonal altar cloths. Just £49 for both the bag and scarf.

The bags are designed to be worn across the body with the length of the strap from the neck measuring 60cm and the bag resting on your hip.