Marthamma & John Mark
Married Couple
Marthamma and John Mark are caretakers of one of GPPD's children's Homes. They played a big part in the start up of the Advent Calendars and are trusted leaders of the projects in the South. They hold the trainings to teach new women how to make the different products. They spend many hours shopping for the cloths and materials needed for the Advent and Mini Nation Dolls. Marthamma was recently in a bad accident on her way to shop for cloth for the calendars and GPPD is supporting her in prayer for a full recovery.
It is often said, “If you feed a man a fish, you can feed him for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
We look for avenues to equip women and men in poverty with the opportunity to start a business of their own that can help them provide fortheir basic needs of food, shelter, and education for their families for a lifetime.
Their businesses also invest into large projects we are doing in their communities and throughout the world.
In 2012 we launched our first sewing microbusiness training, teaching 21 impoverished women how to start a sewing business of their own. Through donations from Proceeds for Poverty and other one-time gifts, we buy a sewing machine and iron for each trainee.
We train them in simple business principles and sewing skills that will help them begin a seamstress business in their communities and villages.
We also train them to make products for GPPD that we will give away for a donation. Once they earn a portion of the cost of their machines by making a few products for us, we then pay them for each additional product they make.
The proceeds we receive from any donations for the products go toward a larger project to help people in poor communities throughout the world, a fee for labor, shipping the product (if neccesary) and the cost of the materials.