Remember these colorful and very whimsical works of art when thinking about African gifts that make a difference in the lives of people in need; these beaded girlies are all one-of-a-kind and are helping HIV-positive women in Cape Town loosen the disease's grip on their community.

MonkeyBiz distributes free beads to program participants, then pays beaders per piece for completed creations. Since MonkeyBiz is a non-profit organization, the funds generated from the sale of MonkeyBiz dolls goes mainly to the beaders.

MonkeyBiz presents an income source that allows women to work from home without incurring travel and childcare expenses, and it also extols a craft form embraced by the Xhosa, Ndebele, Zulu and Sotho peoples from which program participants descend.

 

The MonkeyBiz project received a huge dose of hope, support and exposure when film director Tina Davis first visited Cape Town in 2002 and fell in love with the project. Davis saw the potential for a MonkeyBiz documentary, so she set out to bring these wonderful women of Cape Town to the big screen.

 

In the film Bigger Than Barbie, we get to visit the women of the Monkeybiz project in their homes in Cape Town. We then accompany the dolls as they journey from South Africa to Donna Karan's Madison Avenue boutique, and then on to the Mandela concert for HIV/AIDS in Norway.

 

With special appearances by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Donna Karan and Annie Lennox, the film is definitely helping the dolls on their way to becoming "bigger than Barbie".