Uri

I think every parent thinks their child’s laughter is the best sound in the world. Mylo’s truly is.

It’s contagious and heart warmingly honest, it will always win me round.

I’d like to think my story of happiness was a constant, always there but it really truly began when she came. It’s as true now as it was the day she was born I never knew real happiness until she was here. It was a very real insert of honest, unremitting, boundless love.

I found out I was pregnant quite later on, in 2017 my father had been in his last year of enduring terminal illness. My work was directionless and I felt trapped in a dysfunctional relationship. It was a year of making monthly trips to my dying father in Holland whilst trying to hold down multiple jobs to keep a roof over my head in London. To say the least it was not the best year of my life. 

A month after my fathers death, my then partner and I, had gone our separate ways. There was the hope of processing, healing and rebuilding a better life. I then found out I was due to have a baby in just over five months. I won’t deny there were more than few weeks of feeling numb, shocked and lifeless. It took all of me to get me back to half functioning and facing reality.

If you’re going to go head on with opening your eye’s and getting incredibly real, that’s the one.

Within one fell swoop clarity of my own deep set issues with multi-cultural identities, fears of judgments in society, career prospects and loneliness all hit head on. I woke up daily worked on my head and health and dreamt up Handwoven by  Uri.

I guess now looking back, Mylo and this particular dream have really saved me. They are both my babies, cooked up at the same time.

I looked intensely, I was faced with how I, solely I, wanted to raise this child in this world, help shape her values, help carve her journey and what I would be held accountable for.

When she reached eight months I packed our bags and hitched Mylo into a sling for a fourteen hour plane journey to the Philipines. We traveled up to remote mountain communities meeting all women maker communities, all with different stories, all working, surviving and a lot of the time facing hardship alone with a baby on their back whilst working on a farm in the blazing heat.

In these months my goal went from being about Mylo and I, to being about all the women it could potentially involve, empowering them and in turn empowering my daughter to know that she can work to support a system that makes a president in setting the right values. 

Fast forward to today it’s now been nearly two and a half years, Mylo turns two in a few weeks. We are now on week fourteen of lockdown and the launch of Handwoven by Uri has been pushed back to spring next year. 

This pause has brought so many crucial issues to light and what a privilege it has been to be able to use it to think of how important it is that we move in the right direction after lockdown. I know every decision which has any impact on the environment after this, whether it be the right energy supplier or making deadlines earlier to use shipment rather than airfreight for products will all weigh a lot heavier once we start to be active again.

The lockdown has given space to be aware that we are now capable of dreaming big, not for big money but to spread big values. Values as true as that laugh that gets me out of bed every morning, bringing a smile I’ve never felt sting my heart in such a way before her. It’s the love I have in empowering the women who make Handwoven by Uri happen, which in turn will empower Mylo with the right values and knowledge in the future. If you can muster up a feeling that is genuinely to spread good, now is the time.

Napagmahal (with love),

Charly & Mylo

Uri ( which translates to nature in Tagalog)

Follow Charly here to keep up to date with the launch of Handwoven by Uri