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WEAVE and TO-GO WARE

P'lovers Admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:52:57 +0000

If you hate taking plastic cutlery when you are buying food on the run, To-Go Ware has created a fabulous option. Refuse plastic and use your own reusable bamboo cutlery set – a fork, knife, spoon and chopsticks wrapped in a hand-woven cotton case made in the Umpium Mai Refugee Camp, by WEAVE, a Fair Trade women’s cooperative on the Thai-Burma border.

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WEAVE stands for ‘Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment’. WEAVE works with Karen refugee women living in camps on the Thai-Burma border. Karen people have lived for hundreds of years in Burma but, because of human rights abuses of the military government in Burma, they are now among the 100,000 refugees crowded along the border. Many do not have access to proper healthcare, education or income and cannot safely return to their home in Burma. (www.weave-women.org)

Not only can you help the planet by avoiding plastic cutlery when you use your own, you can help refugee women in a far away land generate income and move towards self-determination.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Freeplay Radios

P'lovers Admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:02:27 +0000

Radios are critical tools for spreading information. This is especially true in developing communities where being able to hear a broadcast can keep vital lines of communication open between communities. However, this can be a challenge if the community has no way to generate electricity.

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In 1994, Trevor Baylis had invented the “clockwork radio” and realized his invention could help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa through better education. This insight led to the development of Freeplay Radios, which do not require batteries and are solar-powered and hand-cranked. With a grant from the British Government and support from co-founder Rory Stear, Freeplay was born.

Freeplay radios, placed in a tent or village gathering spot, quickly became tools for learning and organizing communities. These radios have been distributed throughout the world to provide school classes, public health information, and news bulletins in times of disaster. It has been reported that the Freeplay radio was considered such a desirable tool in Nigeria that the government implemented a program trading the radios for illicit guns.

The Freeplay product range now includes hand-cranked flashlights and lanterns and mobile phone chargers. P’lovers carries Freeplay products because of their story, because of their quality, and because, even in North America, these products are most useful for camping and for times when conventional power fails.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read what one of Freeplay’s cofounders, Rory Stear, has to say about his work at www.principalvoices.com and about the Lifeline radio project at www.freeplayfoundation.org.

The Barefoot College

P'lovers Admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:53:39 +0000

The Bird Totas and Tree of Life hangings and Pillow Covers available at P’lovers come from The Barefoot College (www.barefootcollege.org), founded in 1972 in Tilonia, Rajasthan, one of India’s largest, driest, and poorest states. The Barefoot College is based on the belief that solutions to rural problems lie within the community. The programs and initiatives of the Barefoot College are designed to benefit the ‘poorest of the poor’ and improve their lives by addressing basic needs for water, electricity, housing, health, education and income.

The Barefoot College encourages learning by doing and focuses on practical knowledge and skills. It many programs include training and service delivery in solar electrification, rainwater harvesting, environmental restoration, health promotion, and education.

For example, hundreds of ‘solar engineers’ have been trained who can now help communities use the sun to provide electricity throughout not only India but also communities in Africa, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. Over 3000 solar lanterns have been manufactured at the Barefoot College to support this work.

In the realm of education, over 250 night schools have been established in communities throughout India which enable over 6000children who have to tend cattle during the day to attend school at night. They learn by solar lantern and commit to attending school for five years.

The Barefoot College is redeveloping 500 hectares of wasteland into useful pastureland. The aim is to ensure that this redeveloped land is drought resistant and able to be productive for years.

Over 200 health centres and all the health workers trained by the Barefoot College have improved the health of thousands of people and have reduced the rates of infant and maternal mortality in those communities to well below the national average.

The Barefoot College’s main campus occupies 80,000 square feet and includes a residence, library, dining room, meeting halls, 10-bed hospital, pathology lab, water testing unit, teacher training unit, craft store, internet café and a 700,000 litre rainwater harvesting unit. The campus is fully solar electrified.

In 2006, the Barefoot College won the prestigious $1 Million Alcan Prize for Sustainability.

P’lovers is proud to be a tiny part of the Barefoot College story.

To learn more about The Barefoot College, check out www.barefootcollege.org; or www.tilonia.com; or read pages 359-362 in Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century; or log on to www.WorldChanging.com.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more Videos see: http://ca.youtube.com/user/barefootcollege