After work one Thursday, a group of women friends gathered for Chardonnay and goat cheese at a posh home in Los Altos. A veritable pirate's booty of colorful beaded jewelry was piled on the dining ...

A chance encounter in a slum on the outskirts of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, led to a project that helps some of Uganda's poorest women sell handmade paper-bead necklaces in North America. In 2004, ...