Tag Archives: AYA Summit

Gifts That Give Back Guide 2014, Creating Change Through Economic Opportunity

Gifts That Give Back Guide 2014, Creating Change Through Economic Opportunity

In October I attended the ONE Girls & Women AYA Summit at the Google Headquarters in DC. One of the many powerful panels we heard from was entitled Change Through Economic Opportunity, and both major fashion companies and small start-ups weighed in on how they are impacting the lives of women through economic empowerment.  There are so many fantastic places to purchase gifts holiday season, but why not use the power of your wallet to also help to lift a woman out of poverty when you purchase them. I feel like this makes the giving even sweeter. Not only will the recipient love what they get, but you both will know it had a positive impact on someone else’s life somewhere in this world. To me it feels like giving twice. Here are my top picks this year to use my purchasing power for social good from the AYA Summit panelists and beyond.

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Vase from the Heart of Haiti line

 

Gorgeous clutch from the Kate Spade On Purpose line

Gorgeous clutch from the Kate Spade On Purpose line

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Macy’s sells a line of goods called Heart of Haiti, designed to enrich and improve the lives of the artisans that create beautiful goods. Established after the massive earthquake in 2010, Heart of Haiti was created as a sustainable way to help repair Haiti’s fragile economy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I’ve been a huge fan of Kate Spade since she began so I was thrilled when I met Sydney Price and heard her speak about the Kate Spade On Purpose line at the AYA Summit panel on Change Through Economic Opportunity.   Each piece in this collection is handcrafted in Rwanda creating sustainable economic opportunities for women and reshaping their community.

 

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 9.54.08 AMScreen Shot 2014-12-11 at 11.00.42 AMI also met Jane Mosbacher Morris at the AYA Summit where she participated in the panel on Change Through Economic Opportunity. I love her story from policy to retail and was thrilled to have the opportunity to interview her a few days ago and get more insight into her path to founding To The Market. To The Market is a marketplace for survivor made goods, whether it is from war, disaster, or abuse, To The Market provides a market for the beautiful handcrafted goods that give women survivors a chance to support themselves and their families.

fashionable copyScreen Shot 2014-12-11 at 11.03.40 AMI had the pleasure of visiting the FashionABLE factory in Ethiopia this past summer and have been writing about and wearing the gorgeous scarves made in Ethiopia for years. That made it such a thrill to finally meet founder Barrett Ward at the AYA Summit this past fall where he participated on the Change Through Economic Opportunity panel as well. They are now expanding operations to include products made in Kenya and a beautiful line of leather products, all while providing social service programs of health care, education in a trade, and assistance with child care for their artisans to help them build better lives for themselves and their families.

Photo by Heidi Reed

Photo by Heidi Reed

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 11.05.10 AMFor the person who has everything that you still want to let know you are thinking of them, there are many non profits where you can gift a gift in a loved ones name.  Often the non-profit will send them a certificate or note saying that you did so. This year I am supporting the non-profit Edesia, based in Rhode Island, that provides nutritional supplements for prevention and treatment of malnutrition in children. Edesia products are specifically created to treat babies and children during the critical first five years of life. If they do not get proper nutrition within those first five years, and most critically the first thousand days of life, they may be stunted and never reach their full potential. If you make a donation on the Edesia website in the notes section and list name of the person in whose name the donation is being made and their address, Edesia will send them a post card letting them know.

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 11.38.48 AMScreen Shot 2014-12-11 at 11.27.50 AMOh, and how can I forget wine!? One Hope Wine where 1/2 of the proceeds goes to educating girls, which we know is key to global development. When a girl is educated she will tend to get married later, have fewer children, and contribute economically to her family.

 For more ideas on gifts that give back check out my past gift guides from 2012 (That includes Heifer International), 2013 and for foodies

To #EndEbola The World Needs To Be #UnitedAgainstEbola

To #EndEbola The World Needs To Be #UnitedAgainstEbola
Still frame from the ONE Campaign video Ebola: Waiting

Still frame from the ONE Campaign video Ebola: Waiting

One of the cruelties of Ebola is that is goes against the very core of our human nature, the instinct to care for others. Like the NPR Story about the infant, still young enough to nurse, left in a box at the clinic where her mother had just died from Ebola. The baby had tested negative so far, so of course the group of nurses took turns caring for the baby. How could you not?  Ultimately the baby became sick and died, as did most of the caregivers, the nurses.

Tragic stories like this have been playing out in West Africa for far to long. Ebola is stoppable. We have seen it done. We need to get it done. Nigeria serves as a great example where a swift local response with in place medical, and vaccine infrastructure helped to halt the spread. Due to a concerted effort and funding to eradicate Polio from the region, Nigeria already had the necessary health care infrastructure to be able to contain and manage the Ebola outbreak when it hit. According to Dr. Chris Elias,  president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program, previously done modeling studies based on experience with where and how Polio spread in the country, risk areas for Ebola were readily identifiable. Meanwhile countries with weak  health care systems were vulnerable to the outbreak.  Frontline healthcare workers in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea have been tirelessly devoting themselves to the crisis from the beginning, but thousands of lives could have been saved if the world responded more quickly with the necessary funds and medical resources critical to reduce the spread.

“every day we continue to wait – for funding to reach the ground, for nurses and doctors to be deployed, for the shattered medical services to be rebuilt – more people die.”- ONECampaign

What we know is that though it’s lethal, the Ebola virus is relatively short-lived as viruses go, and transmittable only through contact with infected bodily fluids.  This means that although it can be spread quickly, once contained, the number of new infections come down quickly as well. Liberia has been the hardest hit country with an estimated 3,000 deaths from the disease, but according to the World Health Organization we are beginning to see the number of cases there decline.  Girls and women have been disproportionately impacted since traditionally they are the caretakers in their communities as Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf explained via video feed to attendees of the ONE Girls and Women AYA Summit several weeks ago.   According to a story in the Associated Press by Jonathan Paye-Layleh on ABC news  today she has set a goal of Liberia being Ebola free by December 25th by doubling their efforts.

World leaders need to commit the resources to get it done. Our best chance to #EndEbola is if the world is #UnitedAgainsEbola. Two organizations working towards that very goal released videos last week to highlight this point.

ONE Campaign encourages us to take action by putting pressure on our government leaders to do so by signing this petition.

You can Find out here if the countries that have made promises to Ebola have delivered to help #ENDEBOLA.

Africa Responds  focuses on how African countries are #UnitedAgainstEbola and how local organizations have been working on the ground since the beginning of the crisis to get help to those who need it.

It is our human nature to care for others, and you can do just that through donations to help get the resources where they need to go, or by using  your voice and signing the petition to let government leaders know you care. What the world can not afford to do is sit by any longer and do nothing. We can #EndEbola when we become #UnitedAgainsEbola. Let’s get it done!

During UN General Assembly week in September I attended a roundtable on the Ebola crisis with ONE Campaign, The Gates Foundation, and Save The Children. In October at the One Girls and Women AYA Summit a discussion with a panel of experts  on Ebola including a physician from the front lines in Liberia accompanied the video address by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

The AYA Summit With ONE Girls & Women

The AYA Summit With ONE Girls & Women

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This week at the Washington D.C. Google headquarters I will be attending ONE’s 2014 AYA Summit .  Co-hosted by ONE Girls & Women and Google the AYA Summit is an exciting opportunity to meet some of the amazing speakers and attendees, as well as catch up with friends and colleagues.  It is always inspiring to be in an environment surrounded by change-makers approaching the world we live in with optimistic problem solving and ideas.

 The word AYA is an African Adinkra symbol from Ghana for fern that represents endurance, resourcefulness and growth. A beautiful symbol for the AYA Summit that will highlight the progress and challenges that girls and women face in developing countries. In the fight to eliminate extreme poverty improving the lives of girls and women is essential.

When girls and women are given the necessary education and tools, they can be change-makers within their families and communities. Through a series of talks, panels, visuals, and demonstrations, the summit will explore what it means to be born female in Africa, and what we, working together with our African partners, can do to make sure that all girls and women reach their potential. The summit will bring together leaders from the non-profit, government, private sector and celebrity arenas.- ONE Girls & Women Read the rest of this entry