My name is Lucy Heyes and I am 14 years old and I live in Cape Town, South Africa T-Bags= an international commodity ‘Commodity’: noun a useful thing;product

My Mum collects tea-bags!

Yes, you read correctly, she collects tea-bags and not new ones, but used ones.

In fact we have boxes, cupboards and a garage overflowing with T-bags.

We even find them lying on the grass or stuck in the odd bush. My Mum dries them outside on trays in the garden and then when the wind decides to blow, they land up decorating our garden.

You may be wondering how much tea my family drinks, but it is not just my family that donates to the never - ending collection. Many families, schools and hospitals in Cape Town, people from other cities in South Africa and even families from other countries, save them and dry them out for my Mum. We often find bags of them, some dry and some wet and mushy on our doorstep. My sister and I get really excited because we think we have a parcel but to our disappointment we find it’s stuffed with empty T-bags! T-bags, T-bags, T-bags, they are everywhere! With so many T-bags, one may be thinking what on earth is the point of this strange exercise?

Well in actual fact, our collection of small brown bags has had more of an impact than you would think.

The five women my Mum works with live in an informal settlement called or"Imizamo Yethu" or "Mandela Park”, which covers about a seventh of Hout Bay, a beautiful residential area of Cape Town where I live. It homes thousands of tiny shacks squashed together, constructed out of cardboard, corrugated tin, scrap pieces of wood, plastic bags and any ‘left over’ materials or rubbish that can be found and turned into homes.

Walking down a dusty, dirt track from what others would call a ‘squatter camp’, are different aged men and women trying to catch taxis or just walking to their day’s work, whether it is gardening, painting or housework. Beauty, Sweetness, Pamela, Thelma and Nomsa, make their way to a wooden hut on the other side of the valley for their days work.

Before this T-Bag project they were like many others who have no hope of employment. They were the same as those who today, stay in their shack all day with no chance of getting work. They look after small children do the washing and finish chores and never stop wondering whether they will have enough money to buy an evening meal for their families. Every day is a struggle for survival.

When the "T-Bag" ladies arrive at the hut, once a week on a Wednesday morning, you never know what state they will be in. Sometimes they are just damp and sometimes they are soaked to the skin from the heavy Cape winter rains that invade their unstable homes through the many leaks and cracks. One woman might bring her baby with her because there is no one at home to care for the child. No matter how their previous night unfolded, whether their house has been blown away in the wind or whether they are ill with flu or some unknown bug, a result of the cold, they still come to the project. They cannot afford to miss that one morning of work, as for some of them it is the only job they have.

It has taken my Mum a few years of hard work, determination and prayer to fund this project. Materials are expensive but my Mum never gave up as she really believed that she could make a difference and so with the help of her T-bag ladies, she has produced a line of T-bag cards, note-pads, gift packs, boxes and bags. All the products have a distinct African feel. The women make up different designs and patterns that they then paint onto the dried, emptied and ironed T-bags. They also have the responsibility of sticking their T-bags onto the card, putting the card together with an envelope in a plastic bag and making up the notepads.

From never having held a paintbrush or taking part in activities most of us would consider ‘beginner’ art activities, the ladies have slowly but steadily improved their skills and the cards have become more and more professional. My Mum went from shop to shop looking for a market for the cards - she kept on showing them to people and now her T-Bag products are being sold to many different shops in Cape Town and are even being exported around the world. Newspapers and Magazines have written articles about the project, which has even led to a few documentaries on television.

Although there are often problems and difficulties with the project, my Mum never gave up on her dream of helping to make a difference to a small group of women that had very little money, no employment and a quality of life that very few of us can even imagine.

The potential and value of the project is slowly starting to be seen by locals in Cape Town and indeed by people all over the world.

However with more support, this project could give these ladies and potentially many more like them, a house that would keep them warm and dry.

In the future, we hope that these women will be able to send their children to a playgroup and eventually to school. That they will be able to provide food for their families without worrying where tomorrow’s meal will come from.

Who would have thought that a silly little thing like recycled T-bags could help change and improve the quality of someone’s life , but it can.

Job creation is something that needs to be encouraged and supported around the world, but especially here where I live. We need to create jobs because that gives people the best chance of improving the quality of their own life.

We don’t often open our eyes to the poverty and living conditions that are sometimes just up the road from us. We become complacent about how lucky we really are and we don’t think about how others live and what a struggle for survival their daily lives are.

Maybe we should all start thinking about how each of us can create more jobs and so solve the problems of poverty in this world.

So much time, money and effort is spent on ourselves and pointless things that make no positive impact and difference to the world and the people around us.

If people really care about others, anything is possible.

Look what a simple tea bag has done!

Do not abandon the children of Africa.

In Africa homes for HIV babies are far and few between and many HIV positive babies are abandoned to die alone by parents who cannot cope with their own battle with the disease. These innocent babies die a horrible painful death with no access to medicine or health care.

These children did not choose to be born with HIV and they do not deserve to die like this and to be ignored by a society that chooses not to care.

What is the world going to do about the HIV positive babies and the thousands of babies and children that are orphans of AIDS victims?

Governments cannot ignore this problem any longer. I also believe that the multimillion dollar pharmaceutical companies too, have a responsibility to help alleviate the plight and the pain of this awful disease.

The success of any company should not be just be measured by profits, but by the impact it has on improving quality of life.

Africa needs help. The only reason that this virus affects 3rd world countries so badly is because of the lack of funds, poor nutrition and a sad lack of education.

For me one of the most apalling things is that there isn’t even enough money to give medicine to help stop the pain that comes from the thrush that affect AIDS babies. Now any person who has had a mouth ulcer can imagine the pain the babies must be in when every mucous lining is covered in sores caused by thrush, a symptom of this disease. If you and I have thrush we simply go to the pharmacy and buy the medicine to treat it.

But for them there is no antibiotic because why waste it on someone who is going to die anyway – the system can’t afford it! And so we let them suffer all alone.

We tend to ignore the problems of poverty and HIV because it does not affect us directly. Many people in what is called the 1st world, live insular lives and are completely oblivious and seemingly uncaring of the unnecessary suffering of so many of the people in this very real 3rd world.

These children infected with HIV will live a relatively short time without access to drugs and good nutrition. To see and hold a little baby should be a joyous occasion but when holding an HIV baby one can only feel despair and utter sadness at the hopeless state of affair.

Isn’t it our responsibility as a humane and caring society to make their short time on earth the best it can be? They do not deserve to have to go hungry, to be cold, to be in pain and to die abandoned on a rubbish dump.

Many families could improve the quality of their life with a packet of seeds - something they have no money to buy. By providing seed and the knowledge of food gardens to the people they could so easily take control of their nutrition and so improve their quality of life and their health.

Every one can make a difference – we are part of a universal world and everything we do affect others. We have to start acting globally and start caring about improving the lot of people affected by disease and poverty.

Give Africa a hand and make the world a better place for the children born into the 3rd world.

Do's and don'ts for world peace:

When a country tells you that they have no hidden weapons of mass destruction and you don't believe them, DON'T warn them and give them enough time to hide the weapons before doing an inspection.

Use the UN peacekeeping forces to swoop and do random checks but remember it costs nothing to show respect for other nations.

All countries should be open to unannounced and thorough investigations of their weapons stashes - not just those, some countries regard as a danger. All politicians are dangerous as they have their own agendas that their public is often unaware of.

If countries have nothing to hide they shouldn't mind this ongoing investigation. If chemical and nuclear weapons are found these should be destroyed and the country punished.

Weapons of war kill women and children - innocent victims and pawns of politicians!

When a country is giving you an open invitation to come and check out their country because they are certain that they have no hidden weapons of mass destruction and you don't believe them,

DON'T take the open invitation as one to take over and take all their natural resources as well.

Always remember that world peace starts at home. So next time you think a country is run by a bunch of morons, get involved - talk to them - get active in your community and take control - Make a difference to world peace.

To improve the quality of life.

Being a young women I believe that to improve the quality of life we should seriously take away the control from men.

I believe that men are the cause of all stress, tragedy and anything else that provokes a negative response in the world.

Hypothesis: Men are the route to all things bad, evil, annoying and anything else that provokes a negative response.

Proof: Men are always going on about how clever they are and when women try to oppose their statements their immediate response is, “How many women presidents are there”

Sadly on this point, they are correct, and miserably there aren’t many women presidents in the world. Woman have been effectively kept out of the political arena because of men and as history has shown, the lack of the vote.

There are hardly any women presidents or leaders in the world and the direct outcome of this is that the world is corrupt, violent, littered with sexual and pornographic material and all in all not much of what one would call a ‘nice place’.

If women were political leaders, it would be a lot better and everyone would be better off!

They would be spending more time and funds on finding a cure for AIDS.

Education would be a priority.

Poverty and violence would be stopped and exposure to inappropriate sexual material banned.

Presently the world is on the verge of going to war. Due to who, well of course men! The Presidents of countries fighting for power - everyone wants bigger weapons - more power to destroy and control others.

Sadly a lot of men think war or violence is the answer to everything. The winner is the biggest bully with the most destructive war toys!

Men don’t think things through properly. They don’t consider the consequences - they simply follow this male urge to dominate!

Life would be much better if women took control and it is time the women of the world united against war for our childrens' sake!