Every night, scores of homeless sleep on the streets of Accra, Ghana, most of them young mothers under the age of 20. ABAN’s Women’s Empowerment Program trains women in skills such as sewing and fashion design, while preparing them to nurture their children, care for their environment, and launch their own businesses.
Also rampant in the streets of Accra are discarded plastic water sachets, remnants of the city’s only source of clean drinking water. ABAN collects and upcycles these sachets, transforming an environmental crisis into fashionable products, while also transforming the lives of its students.
Rose’s story shows that transformation is not always a straight path. Five months before graduating, she strayed back into the streets, returning months later to ask for a second chance. She has since become the first graduate to be hired as a seamstress into ABAN’s employment program, where she is recognized for her natural creative talents.
Your eye pillow comes from deep inside the Amazon jungle and resonates with the cosmic awareness of its makers, a people known as the Shipibo. Despite increasing contact with the developed world, the Shipibo remain steeped in the spiritual environment of their ancestors, whose ancient geometric designs function as channels connecting the physical and spirit worlds.
Meandering rivers, star paths, the very veins of the universe repeat for all eternity across the facets of our being and the patterns of your hand-woven cotton pillow. The cotton has been dyed in mahogany bark and painted using a piece of bamboo dipped in the juice of the huito berry, a jungle fruit.
Women are the principle artists of the Shipibo tribe, and begin their visionary work at a young age, bestowing each object in the Shipibo world, including your eye pillow, with a distinct pattern emanating its place in the universal order.
There are many reasons why the baobab tree is known in Africa as the tree of life. Its fruit is a superfruit—delicious and nutrient-dense, packed with antioxidants, vitamin C, probiotics, and calcium, just to name a few. For the women of the Atacora Fair Partnership Co-op, who produced your baobab powder, the baobab also provides financial sustenance.
Dominated by subsistence agriculture, the Atacora region has a weak cash economy. The supplemental income women earn through the co-op grants them access to vital services that require cash, such as quality healthcare and clothing.
Mama Marcellina (pictured center) has been with the co-op since 2009, and is a core member and leader. While getting older has made it difficult for Marcellina to tend to both her fields and family, her Atacora income has enabled her to hire help and increase her yield. Increase your nutrient intake (and your food’s flavor) by adding the powder to smoothies, fruit, cereal, sauces, soups, and baking.
We help others best when our own wellness is attended to, so care for yourself has altruism at it’s core. Everything about your Wellness Box is in the spirit of this lovely little paradox, but we’ve gone the extra mile this month by partnering up with Watsi, a non-profit that funds medical treatments in underserved countries.
We’ll be donating 50% of profits from the Wellness Box to patients on Watsi. So, what does that mean? Watsi connects medical patients who can’t afford the procedures they need with donors via the web. It’s a simple idea with dramatic impact, founded on the awareness that in low-income countries a relatively small amount of money often stands in the way of life-changing care.
Thanks to donors on Watsi, Anibal, a little boy from Guatemala (pictured right), was able to receive eye surgery to treat retinoblastoma, a type of eye cancer.
For the people of the Mixteca region of Mexico, basket-weaving is a way of life that also sustains life. With a dexterity passed down through generations, ancestry come to life in the tireless work of fingers, the weavers weave palms into vibrant, multi-colored baskets. On the outskirts of Oaxaca City, Doña Martina Garcia and her group of eight artisan basket weavers produce roughly 700 baskets per month.
For each artisan involved, basket-weaving means a stable monthly income used for building a house, starting a small business, or purchasing food and medicine. For Doña Martina (pictured left), her steady sales through GlobeIn have meant being able to spend more time at home, where she can work on her baskets while taking care of her children. Recently, she sold her stall in the Oaxaca Crafts Market, where she had been selling for ten years, and has dedicated herself and her small team to working entirely for GlobeIn.
