The Gbomai Bestman Foundation Blog

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Hey there,

We hope you haven’t forgotten about what you helped us accomplish exactly two months ago! On August 21st, business owners, philanthropists, students, & maternal and child mortality activists from the DC metropolitan area gathered together at the Manor Country Club in Rockville, Maryland to introduce our mission and raise funds for our core projects. Read the highlights below:

• Acclaimed entrepreneur & womens peace activist, Leymah Gbowee, traveled from Ghana to join us here in the United States to address our guests and explain the correlation between peace, women, and maternal mortality in Liberia. Our guests walked away with real examples of the positive correlation between both women and the nations they live in: Peace in many African nations relies on the empowerment of women!

• Our guests were serenaded by the color palette of DC’s own international haute couture designer, Tsyndyma, whom told us why she supported GBF here just weeks before she debuted her most recent collection.

• Thanks to ticket sales, proceeds from our amazing line up of silent auction items (major thanks to our donors!), and donations that are still coming in from people who heard about our efforts as a result of the Platinum Health Benefit, we raised nearly $10,000 — not bad for our fist large scale fundraiser, right?

So what have we been doing since then? In the past 2 months, our team has worked diligently to prepare the shipment of our second batch of Maternal Care Packages. Proceeds from the Platinum Health Benefit funded the purchase of the additional items, aside from what you donated, to complete our second batch of TWO HUNDRED – 100 packages for the moms and 100 for babies specifically! This time around, we were able to double our shipment and separate the mothers items from the babies’ because of the increased volume of items for each bag. We shipped them in 6 large barrels and expect that they will arrive to the Liberian Government Hospital on November 12th.  As we look at the number the items we collected and purchased, we can’t thank you all enough for answering our call via our Facebook fan page, Twitter, and personal outreach to donate the mom and baby items on our packages items list.

The rest of the proceeds will fund our second trip to Liberia in November to check on the maternal ward we adopted in February at the Liberian Government Hospital in Tubmanburg and to set up additional clinic adoptions! We promise to tell you all about it in the upcoming months here!

Our official introduction to our home base couldn’t have made more of a splash, and we have you to thank for attending the Platinum Health Benefit and spreading the word!

Oh yeah, did we mention we’ve got photos? Check out the photos you’ve been waiting to see and let us know, here, what you thought about the benefit!

Also, check out what the bloggers and media outlets on the scene had to say about GBF, maternal mortality, and our blowout event!

SHY Magazine

The Scene BISNOW

Glamourina

DMVblogspot

Exploiting Narcissm

The Nazarean Project

As most of you may know, our inaugural Platinum Benefit is rapidly approaching. In three weeks and two days, Gbomai and The GBF Team will introduce the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area to our most prized possession that we’ve birthed and raised for almost a year: The Gbomai Bestman Foundation! We can’t wait to share with our supporters the trials, tribulations, and successes that have made this journey with women in Liberia the absolute definition of  “cause worthy”. We’ve spilled the event details here and have asked all of you to reserve your individual or sponsorship level tickets to join us and distinguished guests on this special day. However, we have yet to personally introduce you to the people that have dedicated their time and talents to make this event a  success. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll introduce you to some of the uber talent we have partnered with and hope that you’ll find them as inspirational as we have.

In starting our series, it is with great pleasure that I have the opportunity to introduce one of the district’s most elite in haute fashion and featured designer for the Platinum Health Benefit on August 21st!   If you’re like me, ears always perked for the the latest fashion news in the district, you may have heard of her. If not, maybe you’ve read about her here. Either way, I caught up with designer, Tsyndyma Kroujilov, to give you some insight on why she left home country Russia for the US, her observations on American style, and how GBF fits into this equation.

[ Editor's Note: With Russian as her first language, Tsyndyma was a bit hesitant to express her th oughts about fashion and GBF in writing. Despite this, as you will read, she was able to give us great insight in to who she is as a designer and more! Her English is superb, aye?!]

Read our interview below:

Tsyndyma and model in Tsyndyma's alpca dress look

1) What inspired your current collection?

My current collection is alpaca garments, sweater dresses. They’re sweet, warm, soft so that anyone can look like they’re in their twenties again. But in a smart way! Being forever young is today’s beauty...

2) What is your fashion philosophy?

Every woman’s dream is to look beautiful. I believe that if you are incredibly happy then you are the most beautiful woman you can be. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s extremely hard nowadays to do everything as a woman…be happy, smart, creative, and still keep up that passion for life. But when it comes to your style or being stylish, whatever you wear just WOW them. In DC, I am around such amazing women who, in whatever they do, are so successful. My happiness comes very much from their happiness…and how their style has impacted that. It is a great feeling to be in contact with women of that caliber, who have made that connection from their style, success, and happiness.

Silk Viscose Jersey Dress from Tsyndyma's Current Collection

3) Tell us why you left Russia to pursue fashion in the United States.

4) As an international designer, what have you noticed about American style? Better yet, What are your observations of style in the nation’s capitol?

French women say that they’re born with style. Maybe it’s true? But lately they have become more conservative while American women, and women in DC especially, are more open minded to any contemporary style. American women exhibit future contemporary style.

5) I can’t thank you enough for accepting our invitation to showcase your beautiful collection to supporters of The Gbomai Bestman Foundation. What are your thoughts about maternal mortality and how Liberian women, women all over the world, are affected by this misfortune?

It’s terribly unfortunate that maternal mortality exists because of limited access to medicine and medical help. I admire The Gbomai Bestman Foundation for trying to bring people together and help in every way possible to reduce this!!

6) Tell us about the connection between fashion and philanthropy and how more artists like yourself can help bring exposure to the urgency of maternal and infant mortality.

When millions of voices support a humanitarian movement each of our separate voices become one voice. Being a fashion artist, I bring Beauty to people. I can be that one voice, supporting yours, at this event to expose and reduce maternal mortality of Liberian women.

7) A last message from the designer to the attendees that will view your collection at “The Platinum Health Benefit: Introducing The Gbomai Bestman Foundation” on August 21st? I’m big on inspirational quotes!

Learn how to make yourself happy, because as mothers we need to teach our kids to live happy too. Happy and healthy.

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Click a photo below to see looks from Tsydyma’s self entitled line featured and published in Washington Life Magazine>>