December 2009
Turn On Turn Off
Double panes Denial is a growing river
Otesha o-tee-shirt
We've got a new Otesha tee-shirt. It’s fairtrade, it’s organic and it’s available for all to buy. Well almost, it’s up on teepay.com and if we get 30 orders in it'll go to print.
The design is a take on Hokusai's 'the wave' with cyclists tumbling out of the white horses. Perfect Christmas present stuff for anyone into bikes, waves, Japanese prints, or anything else for that matter. Get yours here (if the tee-shirt doesn't go to print your card won't be charged). All the cool kids will have one.
Monthly challenge
As the festive season draws near we challenge you to have a happy and socially and environmentally sustainable Christmas/ Ramadan/ Hanuka/ Winter Solstice etc.
How about some environmentally friendly decorations? Rent a living tree instead of buying a dying one, after Christmas the tree will be collected and replanted. You can even order the same tree again next year to see how it has grown.
Have yourself an energy saving Christmas, let your lights be solar powered. Have a sustainable festive dinner, let the Well Hung Meat Company do you an organic turkey. Or get a fair trade advent calendar. It doesn’t matter if you eat four days worth of chocolate in one go, you can feel good about yourself knowing that cocoa farmers are getting a fair wage.
Save yourself another tree and send e-cards this Christmas, let your wrapping paper be rescued (newspaper and potato printing has reached dizzy heights of sophistication this year). With the trusty website instructables on hand you can make just about any present you can imagine. Or give time not money and do something nice for someone this Christmas.
Send your best suitably sustainable festive ideas to busayo@otesha.org.uk, a fair trade chocolate bar to our favourite.
Copenhagen
COP15 (that’s the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference) has begun. Last week 23 young people from the UK made their way over to Copenhagen for the conference by train, bike, bus and boat. They are the UK Youth Delegation to Copenhagen.
They’re already blogging themselves blue in the face and tweeting as if there’s no tomorrow. From the devastated “can't believe it - the singer KT Tunstall has arrived in Copenhagen, but she flew in on EasyJet” to the devastating “‘Climate change means that many of us will cease to exist’ - Grenada & Small Islands talking about the Kyoto Protocol”. Our Hanna’s with the UKYD, you can follow her on twitter.com/hannathomas and the whole delegation on twitter.com/ukycc.
Our Liz is out there too, collecting contributions for Outreach, a daily newsletter circulated at the negotiations. Outreach is supported by a coalition of civil society, including Youth, Gender, Trade Unions, Water and Land Community and Sustainability NGOs. Read about ‘The New (Green) Arms Race’, ‘Just Transitions’ and where gender equality sits with mitigation against climate change.
Watch art not ads
Do away with annoying adverts flashing in the corner of your screen. Add-art, a Firefox Add-on (the geeks tell us we should all be using the open-source Firefox browser these days), replaces banner ads with banner art and replaces the gallery on your screen every couple of weeks. It’s the internet equivalent of muting the telly and popping out to put the kettle on during the advert break, if your kettle also displayed art.
Now we just need an invention to recycle junk mail before it comes through the door. Your best suggestions on a postcard please.
Catch us at the Christmas Cooler
On Sunday 20th December we’ll be at Kirstie and Coralie’s Christmas Cooler making recycled Tetra Pak wallets with anyone who cares to join us. If you like to drink, shop or do you’ll enjoy the bar (tea, coffee and cocktails), handmade and secondhand stuff for sale and different workshops on every evening.
This crafty little pop-up shop is open for the first three weeks of December, Thursday to Sunday.
And finally
This month we’ve been camping at the Lammas Project, heading overland and sea to Copenhagen and joining the Wave as it surged through London.
Peace and bicycle grease
Jo, Hanna, Liz, Busayo & Carla
The Otesha Project UK
www.otesha.org.uk
P.s. Our postcard of the month goes to Anthea who's going to encourage her friends to buy fairtrade and write an article about it for her local newspaper.