Chocolate: the terrible truth

"There is nothing quite like it... Chocolate. A remarkable product. Sold all over the world in vast quantities. But there is a problem. You can't see it when you buy your favourite snack but there is a terrible truth..."

Read more in an article by Ruth Dearnley, CEO of Stop the Traffik.

Knit One, Save One

The Leicester Diocese website alerted me to an appeal from Save the Children UK for knitted hats for babies. They aim is to produce 10 million hats in 2008, which will be sent throughout the world to where they are needed to keep new born babies warm. There is a tag to fill in with each hat which will go to Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street to highlight the appalling death rate among new born babies in many parts of the world. Any baby hat pattern will do or you can get the ‘knit kit’ pattern.

Feed the hungry by surfing the web?

It hardly seems a fair exchange, does it? We can surf the Web, sitting warm and well-fed in the West, and as a result people will get fed in the developing world.

Well, apparently 21 billion grains of rice have been generated by a popular UN backed Internet game. Launched six months ago, freerice.com is an interactive vocabulary game in which players donate 20 grains of rice to the UN's World Food Programme every time they answer a question correctly, allowing individuals to simultaneous bolster their vocabularies and help feed the world’s hungry. The money raised from advertising is used to underwrite FreeRice’s donation to WFP, and so far, enough rice has been generated to feed 1.1 million hungry people for one day.

There is also the longer-established Hunger Site, where you click daily and sponsors donate food. Needless to say, both these sites have Facebook applications. But how do you feel about them? Is it a bit of fun that simultaneously makes you feel philanthropic? Or does it trivialise the desperate situation of those who live on the margins of life?

24 Hour Tea and Coffee Break

A cuppa can make a world of difference! ActionAid are inviting you to participate in a 24 Hour Tea and Coffee Break on Friday 29 February 2008 and help give poor farmers a break – by taking one yourself! By holding a fair trade tea or coffee morning you can support ActionAid’s work with small-scale farmers in the developing world and take action against the global injustices that keep them poor.

Taking part in the 24 Hour Tea and Coffee Break couldn’t be easier - all you need is a kettle and someone to share a cuppa with you are almost there. There are plenty of fundraising ideas on the ActionAid website to help get started, including a fundraising pack with everything you’ll need to hold an event, and a free starter pack of fair trade tea and coffee courtesy of Cafe Direct and fair trade chocolate courtesy of Divine.

You can also check out the ActionAid Extreme Cuppa blog: photos of people having a cuppa in extreme and unlikely situations.

Charity hits out at ethical gifts

Are you sending some alternative ("ethical") gifts this year? I was disturbed to discover that an education charity is claiming that 'give-a-goat'-type gifts "are degrading for developing countries". The Director of Worldwrite suggests that "we should ditch the ethical items in our shopping trolleys. If we want to help our peers, we need to think big and hand over the money", and this month the charity is releasing two films that claim many NGO campaigns are simply about making people feel good and not about helping people. However, the manager of Oxfam Unwrapped says that "What might feel like a fun thing to do at Christmas has an impact the whole year round.... We work with communities who, at the beginning of each year, tell us what they need and want".

What do you think? I remembered an article Getting your goat, from a couple of years ago that follows up one such give-a-goat project and reports the positive impact on the community concerned.

21st September is Tea Time

Just received the summer Christian Aid newsletter, which alerted me to their latest fundraising challenge (which should be quite close to the heart of most Infusion members): Tea Time on Friday 21 September 2007. The idea is you can hold Tea Time anywhere: in your office, at church, at home. You simply ask your friends to give you a donation to Christian Aid in return for a cup of tea or delicious piece of cake. At 4pm on 21 September, people across the UK will be drinking tea together to help end poverty. Christian Aid provide a free event pack and there are other downloads, including recipe cards, available.

Also, the Christian Aid website has had a makeover - its well worth checking out.

Tools With A Mission

Over the past few Christmases we’ve seen the emergence of “alternative presents” such as Oxfam Unwrapped. Now a Christian charity is suggesting an alternative present for Father's Day (June 17th this year). Rather than giving your Dad some socks or hankies that he’ll shove in a drawer, you could sponsor a gift for Father's Day to help someone in Africa change their life.

Tools with a Mission (TWAM) is an independent interdenominational Christian charity sending new and refurbished tools all over the world so they can be used for work which enables families to feed and clothe themselves. Do check out the TWAM website, if you weren’t aware of their activities. If you have any old tools, TWAM can recondition or repair them and send them off to Africa.

Christian Aid Week

Its the end of Christian Aid Week, but the 2007 materials are still available on the website (do check out the animated envelope!). In addition to material for prayer and reflection, there's the Christian Aid Week report for 2007, Human tide: the real migration crisis, which predicts that at least one billion people will be forced from their homes between now and 2050 as the effects of climate change deepen an already burgeoning global migration crisis.

Excellent Microfinance for International Development Site

I've just looked through www.kiva.org, an excellent innovation in ways to support people in developing countries. Kiva enables you to choose a business to lend to. You don't get interest, but you do get paid back in a process which provides a disciplined structure for the business to grow. The businesses are vetted and monitored by a partner in the country.

There's also Shared Interest, but this supports Fair Trade only (http://www.shared-interest.com/).