Jewelry Making at Little Pugad Shelter

When I arrived at Little Pugad Shelter carrying heavy boxes of beads and charms, children were already waiting at the window, calling out, “Κυρία!”—“Miss!”

Little Pugad is home to The HOME Project’s youngest children, boys and girls ages 6 to 13, including sets of siblings. At 13, children transition to one of the single-sex shelters.

I had arrived with a plan: bracelets with the girls and key rings with the boys.

Almost immediately, nothing went according to plan.

I looked over and saw a boy from the Democratic Republic of Congo linking connector pieces together into a chain. He had turned them into a necklace and finished it with a large dove charm I had originally bought for the key rings. It was nothing like what I had planned—and much more creative.

Next to me was a boy who had recently arrived from Egypt. We didn’t share a language, so we communicated through hand gestures, facial expressions and a lot of smiling. Digging through the charms, he suddenly found a tiny flip-flop. He held it up, looked down at the flip-flops on his own feet, and started giggling.

Around the table, the distinction I had imagined between “bracelets for girls” and “key rings for boys” disappeared. The children chose what interested them, experimented with the materials and figured out their own ways to put things together.

That ended up being my favorite part of the workshop.

I had come to Little Pugad thinking I was bringing the children an activity I knew how to do. Instead, my role was mostly to give them the materials, help when they needed it, and then watch what they created.

The afternoon reminded me why I loved making jewelry in the first place. A handful of beads and charms can become something completely personal and there is no single right way to make it.