“Janan Collection is about what it means – heart. These woman weave baskets, make jewelry and home décor items and paint to survive, period. This is not about the war or about anything but helping women in need.”
– Teresa Nguyen, Co-Founder of Janan Collection
The Iraqi Women & their children
This is a true story about 30 impoverished Iraqi women in an area south of Bagdad…
most are illiterate or do not have more than an elementary education,
they have an average of 5 children,
they are in their 20s,
they have little or no work experience,
there are no child care programs available,
their homes are about 300 sq. ft.
While on her third tour in Iraq, Major Ty Nguyen-Reed was approached by a woman by the name of Fatima. Through her translator, Fatima told her that she had lost her husband when he was on his way to work when suicide bomber detonated his bomb on the bus that he was on. She was left 3 children to feed and begin looking for job opportunities; no one accepted her. An idea came to her when she was weaving a basket and while weaving, she thought about her husband, her children and the women in her neighborhood who were in the same situation.
Fatima, like her widowed neighbors did not want charity; they wanted assistance. Nguyen-Reed discovered their many talents of weaving baskets, making jewelry and home décor items and even paintings and contacted her sister in the States.
After much research and months later, the sisters formed JANAN COLLECTION and organized a tour, starting in Dallas, to showcase and present 30 Iraqi women’s beautiful art and to help these women in need.
The Sisters
The Nguyen sisters’ parents fled from a war-torn country, Vietnam, to find refuge in the United States. Major Ty Nguyen-Reed is the oldest of the 4 siblings and with her parents, brother and 2 uncles they escaped by boat to Thailand, a refugee camp in the Philippines and then to America. With their two brothers, they grew up appreciating and respecting the opportunities their parents provided them. They grew up in Ft. Worth, Texas.
Nguyen-Reed has served the U.S. Army for 9 years and was recently recognized on Oprah for her work as an American soldier.
A graduate from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1999 with B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Nguyen-Reed was commissioned in U.S. Army as second lieutenant. As of March 2009, she served three tours in Iraq and 27 of those 32 months; she served as a company commander over logistics and combat power to the brigade.
While in Iraq, Nguyen-Reed developed district-wide summer soccer tournaments for about 10,000 youths to facilitate reconciliation among sects of Iraq society to give a sense of security and normality, empowerment to the local population in southern Baghdad, Iraq. This resulted in 900 soccer games played, organized by local government and community leaders and various sects of Iraqi society were mended.
She also established women vocational training projects, such as sewing, beautician set skills and literacy training for Iraqi women. A partnership with non-profit organization, A Model Teacher Organizations allowed Reed to educate Iraqi women on domestic violence and venereal diseases prevention. Months before her last (third) tour in Iraq, she founded JANAN Collection to promote, preserve Iraqi artistic tradition and to employ and empower the Iraqi women. She currently resides in Kansas City and is married to Major Eric. S. Reed.
Teresa Nguyen is a graduate from Southern Methodist University with a B.A. in Journalism. Nguyen owns an advertising agency in Dallas called RED iD Agency that specializes in developing corporate and individual identities or branding. Before venturing out on her own, she was a morning producer for the USA Radio Network, a Marketing Coordinator for Promise House and then, a Marketing Director at a Dallas ad agency. Actively involved in the community, she has organized and coordinated several community projects for youth and fundraising events for various organizations. She currently resides in Dallas, Texas.
