What could be lovelier than butterfly wings?
By Lois, Store Manager, Banyan Tree
The dust has settled, and I’m getting comfortable with our new name and our wonderful new location. I’m also immersing myself in learning about the festive and fascinating fair trade products on the market today.
With fair trade, I have the opportunity to buy for both beauty and benefits — and most fair trade products are beneficial in many ways. Take the gorgeous earrings made from butterfly wings imported through Global Exchange.
They start in the butterfly refuge in Puerto Maldonado, in the Amazon Jungle in Peru. This region is home to amazingly diverse animal populations, including more than 900 butterfly species. Among the wildlife refuges in the area is a butterfly preserve, where the wings of naturally-deceased butterflies are harvested for jewelry. Artisans in a Lima co-operative encase them in beautifully formed silver for earrings and other jewelry.
Who benefits? The farmers and artisans, the fair trade consumer, but most importantly, the environment. Commercially viable reserves like the one in Puerto Maldonado protect the jungle from deforestation while providing an important educational resource. We all win.
I expect to have these earrings on display in the next day or so. Please come in the new store at 18 SW First Ave., next to the Mercy Corps Action Center and Skidmore Fountain.
Meet Banyan Tree
On July 1, the former Ten Thousand Villages-Portland store will reopen in its new location — Mercy Corps‘ headquarters in Old Town, right next to Skidmore Fountain. The address is 18 SW First. We’ll reopen as Banyan Tree, a fair trade store.
The wild and fascinating banyan tree is symbolic in many of the cultures whose crafts we carry. It also was the historic location where Hindu merchants conducted trade. So we think it’s a terrific name for our new location.
While we’ll still be carrying products imported by Ten Thousand Villages, the oldest and largest fair trade organization, we will be carrying a wider variety of crafts than ever before. As fair trade mature, the variety and sources of fair trade products expand, giving consumers more choice while offering greater opportunity to more artisans around the world.
We’re particularly excited about our proximity to the Mercy Corps Action Center. This multi-media interpretive center — one of only two in the nation (and the other one’s in Manhattan!) gives Portland residents a rare opportunity to listen, see and learn about the lives of those struggling and succeeding around the world. You can learn about the tough spots — and access ways to make a difference.
The goals of Mercy Corps go hand-in-hand with fair trade. We are thrilled to be sharing a building, a volunteer ethic and a mission.
Come find us on July 1 in our new location, and stop by the Action Center while you’re there.
In the meantime, we’re holding a fundraiser — Bluegrass for Banyan Tree — on Saturday, July 26 at the Portland Mennonite Church, 1312 SE 35th Ave. A silent auction starts at 6:30, and Lee Highway — a terrific bluegrass band — performs at 7:30. Suggested donation is $15.
New location, new name — same mission!
The store called Ten Thousand Villages has just received some terrific news. In the next several months, we will be moving from our current location to a new home – the retail space in the new Mercy Corps headquarters. The new location is in the former Skidmore Fountain Building, on the MAX line in Portland’s Old Town.
Everyone associated with the store is very excited about the move. We can’t think of any organization that is better respected – or better lines up with our values – than Mercy Corps. Their mission is “to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.” That’s the ultimate goal of fair trade, as well.
We look forward to working closely with Mercy Corps to promote our message of fair trade. We also expect to be carrying crafts made by artisans in communities helped by Mercy Corps.
The new location offers the chance to bring the fair trade message to new audiences. MAX Light Rail stops directly in front of the door. This will provide tremendous visibility – especially on weekends. About a million people a year visit Saturday Market, and many of them take light rail. Ours will be the first store they see when they step off the train.
When we reopen, we will do so under the name Banyan Tree. While we will continue to stock Ten Thousand Villages products and will remain closely associated with Ten Thousand Villages, we will no longer carry that brand’s name.
As always, our goal in moving to our new location is to sell as many hand-made fair trade products as possible. This translates directly into more food on the tables of women who process shea butter in Ghana; of basket weavers in Bangladesh; of ceramic artists in Chile or handicapped jewelry makers in Kenya.
Craft purchases can mean a child may become the first in his village to attend school. It can mean the purchase of medicines that were otherwise out of reach. It may result in women pooling their resources to hire a teacher or local nurse.
By the time we reopen, we would like to be fully stocked with new products – from vendors like Ten Thousand Villages, Gamesh Himal and SERRV that have supplied our store for years, as well as new fair trade sources.
To do that, we are asking for your help. We hope to raise $30,000 to buy new products, cover our expenses while we’re closed and have a cushion as we reopen in our new site.
I’m hoping can help us help the artisans in one of several ways:
- Your tax-deductible contribution can help us stock up on new crafts for our new location. This will ensure we can do our part to keep the orders flowing to artisans in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
- Visit our current location at 938 NW Everett and take advantage of sale prices as we prepare to move during April.
- Please spread the word. Please talk to your friends about the importance of fair trade and how their purchases can positively affect lives and communities around the globe.
Thank you for any help you can gives us. Please send contributions to Ten Thousand Villages-Portland, 938 NW Everett, Portland, OR 97209. If you’d like to contribute electronically, please use the PayPal link on our website.
And come visit our new store right next to the Skidmore Fountain. We look forward to opening by June.
In Chad, hope comes from the sun
What can protect women from attack, protect dwindling forests and create income for refugees?
It’s not a riddle. It’s a summary of the benefits of the Solar Cooker Project.
Today, thousands of Sudanese fleeing the genocide in Darfur are living in refugee camps in Chad. While the camps are relatively safe, once outside the protected area, Janjaweed from Sudan and local men threaten violence.
Women and girls are responsible for finding firewood. Overharvesting and drought mean they must go ever farther to find wood — increasing their vulnerability to rape and savagery.
Solar cookers are relatively simple tools made of cardboard and foil. They capture the sun’s warmth — bringing water to 100 degrees Centrigrade. That’s more than hot enough to sterilize water and prevent disease. They also can help women cook the traditional foods for the region, like rice, macaroni, porridge, millet, tea and meat.
According to Jewish World Watch, sponsor of the Solar Cooker Project, two solar cookers can save one ton of wood each year.
To introduce solar cookers into the camps, the organization starts with camp elders — to help them understand the program’s benefits and develop their support. Once the elders are in favor, they work together to develop a manufacturing plant within the camp. Female refugees receive training in assembling the cookers, providing an income source for their families.
Eventually, everyone in the camp gets training in solar cooking, and the organization sets up maintenance and replacement programs.
To see and hear how solar cooking makes a difference, watch this short video on the Solar Cooking Project site.
So far, all the families in two refugee camps — totaling about 50,000 people — have received solar cookers. Jewish World Watch adopted a third camp in February of this year and currently is training 800 women each month in the use of these cookers.
But there’s a long way to go. Chad is home to nine more refugee camps, and the organization’s goal is to provide solar cookers for all the residents in all the camps.
It’s hard to imagine a more practical, low-cost solution to so many serious problems than this amazing project. A contribution of $30 buys two solar cookers. An entire manufacturing plant only costs $50,000.
Ready to help? Visit the Web site to make a contribution. And pass these links on to your friends.
In Chad, hope comes from the sun.
Schools Make Money and Make a Difference with Fair Trade Fundraising
By Ashley Symons, Equal Exchange
I went to elementary school in the Midwest in the early ‘90s. Every fall, we entered the school gymnasium to get pumped up for our annual fundraiser. This kick-off event was meant to energize us to sell, with lures of all the prizes we could win if we sold the most candy bars, tubs of popcorn, or wrapping paper.
The philosophy was, “the more you sell, the more you’ll win random stuff you really don’t need!” Never did we talk about how what we were selling might impact people or places. Just get the most money, and you too could win a neon-pink kazoo keychain. Woo-hoo!
Fifteen years later, I’m so pleased to be a worker-owner at Equal Exchange, where we offer schools a different kind of fundraising. My co-worker, Virginia Berman, started the Equal Exchange Fundraising Program after getting requests from teachers and parents who wanted an alternative fundraiser. After three years, we’ve partnered with over 300 groups. And the momentum continues to grow every day.
So, what’s special about this fundraiser? Well, for one it offers totally yummy fairly traded and organic coffee, tea, chocolate, nuts and dried fruit. It’s stuff that people already eat and drink, so it doesn’t feel wasteful like typical fundraisers.
Plus, it’s fairly traded, so you can feel good knowing your fundraising dollars are supporting small-scale farmer co-ops and their communities. Additionally, the products are organic. The farmers use sustainable farming methods, without all those nasty pesticides and fertilizers. It’s better for them, it’s better for you and your kids, and it’s better for our earth.
Equal Exchange also developed a Fair Trade and co-op economics curriculum to accompany the fundraising program, to teach children that their everyday choices can make a difference in the lives of others (it’s free to download on our web site). We really believe that change is on the horizon – and we need the help of future generations to make sure we are supporting farmers internationally, while also making efforts toward greening this planet of ours.
The bottom line? Your school fundraiser can make a difference worldwide while raising money for your own community. Sounds way better than a neon-pink kazoo keychain, if you ask me.
To find out more about the Equal Exchange Fundraising Program, please visit www.equalexchange.coop/fundraiser