Trade As One

At some point in the next few days, we’ll have our 1000th order of 2010 here on our site.

To celebrate we’re giving away one of our favorite new products!

XS Project, our new partner in Indonesia, creates beautiful, functional products out of waste that would otherwise spend years (and years and years and years) decomposing in landfills.

One of our favorites is the Cooler Bag (guaranteed* to make you cooler). It’s a soft cooler that folds up for easy storage, expands to hold plenty of food and beverages, and is sure to turn heads. Each one is unique as the products it was upcycled from. We love it – so we’re giving it away!

The 1,000th customer here on our site gets this gift from us.

Hooray!

*Note: a guarantee of coolness on the Trade as One blog means absolutely nothing.

Throughout the year, Trade as One participates in events all around the country that seek to raise awareness and provide practical next steps on a whole host of issues. Last week, Trade as One was present at an event in Oakland, CA around the issue of human trafficking.

Many people living in the United States feel very distant from problems such as human trafficking. Aside from the occasional news article or Frontline special, it is difficult for many of us to contemplate the reality of a growing modern-day slave trade. Even when faced with the grim facts, how can we react?  What is there to do?  Many of you choose Fair Trade as a way to combat this crisis. Others get involved in activism, awareness-raising, work with local organizations fighting trafficking here in the US, and some of you even take short term trips to hotspots.

Nate and Laura Davis, of the non-profit organization Free Is a Verb, confronted those very same questions several years ago, and recently decided to uproot their lives in Oakland, CA in order to move to the Phillipines to fight human trafficking. As part of their fundraising efforts, they put on an event last Thursday, May 20th called “Taste for Freedom” at Mills College Student Union.

Guests from around the Bay Area sampled food and wine, participated in a silent auction, and learned about ways to help stop human trafficking, in the Bay Area and around the world. Ten organizations dedicated to abolishing human trafficking, including Trade as One, were represented at various tables around the room.  Other organizations, such as Because Justice Matters, California Against Slavery, Freedom House, Garden of Hope,  and the International Justice Mission offered educational materials and petitions against human trafficking in the Bay Area.  As the night progressed, hosts Nate and Laura Davis spoke to the crowd of their passion in fighting slavery and injustice.  They also shared a list of small actions that each American could take to fight human trafficking, including donating time and money, signing California Against Slavery’s petition, and buying Fair Trade products, especially products that are made by those escaping sexual slavery.

We so happy to know Nate and Laura. If you’d like to see more about our producers in the developing world who use enterprise to fight slavery and trafficking, click here.

We always love it when people love their Trade as One products enough to tell us about it. Trisha Madsen loves her lunchbox, and she wanted to tell you about it.

I love my lunchbox. It’s just about as unique, earth-friendly, people-friendly, and food-friendly as a munchbox can be (munchbox was actually a typo, but then when I went to fix it, I realized that I might be an accidental genius. So I kept it there.) It’s made from recycled waste in Indonesia, and supports the trash-pickers there who salvage what they can, and make a living for their families in the process. How cool is that? So now, instead of slowly (like hundreds of years slowly) decomposing in a massive dump in Indonesia, my lunchbox sits on my counter waiting for tonight’s leftovers to become tomorrow’s lunch. Instead of wondering where this was made, who made it, and how it was made, I know the answers to these questions, and they make me happy.

Not too shabby for a lunchbox.

Also - I get loads of compliments on my lunchbox munchbox. You would too.

To see Trisha’s lunchbox, click here.

One of my favorite things is when new products arrive in the warehouse. I have always had a particularly strange draw towards inanimate objects that have personality so it was no surprise that I fell in love with Astro Neil.

What I wasn’t expecting was that grown men would also be captivated with him. But, I kid you not – I have seen numerous adults see Astro Neil, smile, pick him up and giggle. Something about him captures us all. Is it because we all secretly want to visit space? Is it that we all wish we got to wear cool uniforms to work? Is it because he is made of string and then stuck into a plastic helmet? I don’t know. But, what I do know is he is clipped onto my bag and every time I look at him, I smile.

The timing of Astro Neil’s arrival at Trade as One seems serendipitous as the Atlantis crew prepares for their spacewalk tomorrow morning, it seems fitting that Astro Neil can serve as a symbol of the amazing things we have seen in our lifetime. Wanna meet him? Click here.

- Rachel

Over 100 leaders tuned in to the webinar yesterday morning to discuss ways to use their influence to be good news to the poor. Lynne Hybels, Nancy Ortberg, and Nathan George shared from their experience in issues of compassion and justice, and those leaders were called to action. You’ll be able to watch the webinar (in its entirety and a 12 minute “highlights” version) when we post them next week, but in the meantime I wanted to share this video. It breaks down what Willow Creek did in 2008 to engage their WHOLE church in alleviating global poverty. We think it’s a fantastic example of a creative, inclusive initiative. You can read more about the webinar and see more videos by clicking here.

——————————————-

——————————————-