PROJECTS
Maria, weaver from Nahuala, Guatemala
I first met Maria in May 2008 while studying Spanish in Quetzaltenego (Guatemala's second city). Normally she, like many other weavers and sellers has to walk the streets hoping to sell a little something here or there to tourists to make ends meet.
At first I just bought a few things, but before leaving I decided to buy 200 vibrantly-coloured scarves in one go, and thus started an enduring friendship of support and respect... (read more)
Marta, vendor from San Antonio, Guatemala
Marta's traditional blue 'guipile' (tunic) makes her instantly recognisable as being from San Antonio Palapo, Lago Atitlan, a stunning volcanic location in the central highlands of Guatemala. I'd often see her in touristed parts of San Pedro la Laguna, carrying a heavy stack of scarves and weavings on one shoulder, usually accompanied by her (then 3-year-old) daughter, Silvia-Acuzena, who is a little cutie. That seemed like a hard life for such a little girl, walking and selling all day with her mother... (read more)
Niños del Lago: projects in Guatemala
Niños del Lago (Children of the Lake) started in 2003 to give children and adolescents with few economic resources in San Pedro la Laguna the chance of better education. Supported by transactional-giving from San Pedro Spanish School (from each tuition fee of their Spanish students) they promote attitudes and values in children for a peaceful and creative co-existence developing to become agents of transformation in their community....(read more)
Martita, vendor from San Pedro, Guatemala
Martita has a great spirit in her. Born with heart defects and physical deformities, her small body belies her 21 years of age, but not her voice when she describes to you her passion and goal in life to be a teacher. Mostly Martita spends her mornings sitting at a humble little stall in the lanes near San Pedro Spanish School to help her mother sell small crocheted or woven souvenirs, and in the afternoons goes to school .... (read more)
Tenzin Kunga, Tibetan refugee in Nepal
Tenzin Kunga is a Tibetan in exile in Pokhara, Nepal. His mother managed to escape Tibet in the first waves of refugees making the perilous journey through the mountains, around the same time as the Dalai Lama himself escaped. I originally began to sponsor his school fees in 1997 (when he was 7 years old). and then in 1998 joined TREK-AID for 3 weeks trekking through stunning landscapes of the Annapurna region, working in several Tibetan-village communities along the way.... (read more)
A Child's Dream: projects in South East Asia
Child’s Dream is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to unconditional help for underprivileged children and youth in the Mekong Sub-Region, which includes Burma, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. They work in partnership with communities to improve the educational and health situation for their children and youth, in a region which has so many humanitarian crises and child-suffering. They specifically focus on extremely remote and neglected areas in this region....(read more)
More Individual Projects via 'Buy-1-Give-1'
As well as the Child’s Dream projects, feeding nutritious meals each day to refugee-children in the camps on the Thai-Burmese borders, we've also used 'transactional-giving' through Buy-1-Give-1 to support various other small-cause-big-impact initiatives in Africa and India, for example ....(read more)
Connecting with Friends all around the World
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