A Visit to WEAVE on the Thai-Burma border

I posted last week about To-Go Ware, sustainable bamboo utensils that you can take-with to avoid disposable plastic cutlery. The utensils come in convenient carry packs, made either from recycled plastic bags by the Conserve nonprofit in Delhi, which I featured in the post; or in pretty cloth wraps made by WEAVE, a group working with Burmese women in refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border. To-Go Ware founder Stephanie Bernstein visited WEAVE last year, in a video I really like. For your viewing pleasure (11 min.):




You can learn more about WEAVE here. To-Go Ware in WEAVE carriers is available at many Whole Foods or online at To-Go Ware.com.

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Help The Breast Cancer Site Earn a $10K Matching Grant

The Breast Cancer Site is trying to reach 8 million clicks for June. If they reach this goal, one of their sponsors will donate an extra $10,000 for the site’s efforts to provide fee and low-cost mammograms to women without health insurance.

There is no cost to you: simply visit the site and click on the pink box. Advertisers make a small donation for each click — and this month your clicks do double duty by helping the site reach the additional $10,000 matching goal.

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Sustainable "To-Go Ware" Instead of Plastic

A month ago I might have thought this was nutty. But after a week-long event where 2,000+ of us were fed three meals a day with disposable plastic plates and cutlery — and where I was wiping off my plastic fork and spoon and carrying them around in my bag all week because all the trash was really getting to me — heck, I carry a water bottle and I use a travel coffee mug, so “travel cutlery“ seems like the natural next step. If I end up spending a week grading AP exams at this event again next year, I’m putting this cool To-Go Ware CONSERVE Utensil Set in my survival kit.

Three things I especially like: The utensils are made of bamboo, which is a nice sustainable resource. The To-Go Ware company was founded by a then-college student who was alarmed by the growing disposable take-out culture around her and decided to do something about it — which BTW reminded me of last month’s post about the Eco-Clamshell, also the brainchild of a young female college student. And the little carrying bag is made by CONSERVE, an NGO in Delhi that employs otherwise unemployed women to collect discarded plastic bags and recycle them into into these utensil carriers. Neat idea, neat company, neat product.

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Photo © 2008 To-Go Ware®.

Women Veterans Health Care Improvement Act

As the number of women serving in the military increases — more than 150,000 in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2002 — so does the number of female veterans coming home who rely on the Veterans’ Administration (VA) for health care. Originally created for a primarily male veteran population, the veterans’ healthcare system lacks adequate resources for the female vets’ health issues, from gyn care to gender-specific PTSD symptoms to, sadly, a newly named phenomenon, Military Sexual Assault Trauma (MST).

Last month a bipartisan group of Senators — Patty Murray (D-WA), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR ), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) — introduced the Women Veterans Health Care Improvement Act of 2008 (S.2799), which calls for “a long-term study of the health of women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, an assessment of barriers for women seeking care at Dept. of Veterans Affairs facilities and of the VA's provision of health services to women, and training of VA staff on treating women veterans who have experienced sexual trauma or PTSD.”

As the United States observes the Memorial Day long weekend, support female veterans by urging your Senator to support the Women Veterans Health Care Improvement act. You can find your Senator’s contact information here, or send a pre-formatted letter via Care2’s Petition Site.


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UNIFEM / Kidman: Say NO to Violence Against Women

Nicole Kidman, goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) is urging people to join in signing a petition “Say NO to Violence Against Women.” I wanted to spotlight this because it’s a good cause, and also because I know several regular readers are involved in anti-domestic violence work in their own communities, and as volunteers for the RAINN online hotline.



The Say NO initiative continues until November 25, 2008, the internationally recognized day to eliminate violence against women, when UNIFEM will hand over the signatures to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in support of his global campaign. Thanks to Geri at Good News Network for alerting me to this campaign.

Today’s mitzvah: Read more about UNIFEM’s Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, and consider signing the peition and/or making a contribution.

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Kiva Update

Señor de Exaltacion Group (Bolivia)

An email update on a loan installment payment reminded me that I haven’t blogged recently about Kiva, the microloan organization. Kiva actually inspired this blog — I was so happy to discover the group, I wanted to share the experience with others. For those who are new to Kiva, here’s how it works: Visit the site, browse “microloan” requests from very low-income entrepreneurs around the world, and join with others in helping to fund a loan for as little as $25/person. The repayment rate is very high (when the loan is repaid you get the money back); Kiva doesn’t take a cut so 100% of the funds goes to the loan; and one is funding entrepreneurial activities that can help women (and now also a few men) raise themselves out of poverty.

I’m currently helping to fund four individual entrepreneurs and two groups. The Señor de Exaltacion group in Bolivia’s Villa Tejada Zone (top of page) is comprised of 16 women who run small shops and make clothing. (Love the hats!) In the Kaksija Group in Guatemala (below), women come together to speak their indigenous language (which I don’t have the diacritical marks to spell) and support themselves making traditional artisan textiles, including embroidered Mayan blouses.

Hannah H. in Mankessim, Ghana (below), sells gari (milled and roasted cassava), salt, maize and earthenware bowls in a local market. She requested a microloan to purchase more supplies to see her through the slow season.

I also have microloans out with Vaiauau I., a seamstress in Samoa; the Condori family in La Paz, Bolivia, who are finishing a house; and Mabel O., who sells soft drinks and pepper soup out of of a small roadside stand in Benin City, Nigeria. You can check out all these on my Kiva lender page.

Today’s mitzvah: Do you have an extra $25? Check out Kiva and see if microloans are right for you.

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