“If you buy one handcrafted bracelet from our organization, you can help men and women in Nicaragua gain an education and a better life,” explained Alexandra Currell, president of the Pulsera Project
Currell, a junior neurobiology and physiology major, brought the Pulsera Project to this university about a year ago. The Pulsera Project is a nonprofit organization that teams up with community centers in remote villages in Nicaragua and other nations. At these community centers, women and men make bracelets and then send the bracelets to college campuses. The clubs that are involved in the Pulsera Project on these campuses sell the bracelets for $5 and send all the profit back to the community centers. The community centers distribute the money to go towards the men and women’s education and necessities to live. Currell fell in love with the idea after hearing about it at the College of Charleston. She talked to members of the club at College of Charleston and they told her how much they helped these men and women in the rural areas of Nicaragua.
Currell learned that if the men and women in Nicaragua didn’t contribute to the Pulsera Project, they would have to work in sweatshops because of the underdeveloped places they live in. Currell was touched by this and knew she wanted to help these people as much as she could. She brought the club to the University of Maryland and it has become a huge success. Currell said that at the most recent First Look Fair, hundreds of people signed up to participate in the club and hundreds of people bought the bracelets.
As president of the club, Currell educates the members of the club about the where exactly the money goes to, and decides when and where the club will sell the bracelets on campus. The club sells bracelets for a few days every month, usually outside of STAMP. Currell really wants to keep expanding the club so that they can sell bracelets more frequently and at multiple locations. Currell tells us, “I would love to be able to have a booth set up outside of Chipotle and Starbucks and one outside of the dining halls to attract more students to buy them.”
Each bracelet sold comes with a card that has the face of the person who handcrafted the bracelet and their signature. When a student buys the bracelet they know exactly where it is coming from. Currell says that this is such a great part of the project because it emphasizes how much the Pulsera Project helps specific people. She encourages more people to join the club so that they can “color the world” together.
You can visit the Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1414510408817998/ to learn more about the Pulsera Project!