August 12, 2008
YOU magazine's Liz Jones joins me in Bangladesh
Liz Jones, Fashion Editor at Large of the Daily Mail, joined me in Bangladesh to see some of our amazing clothes being produced and witness the organic cotton harvest. You can read Liz's account from YOU magazine at the Mail online
Safia and Liz Jones (above) and Mayumi Ishi (left) and Miki Alcalde (right), media friends who came to Bangladesh to document the first organic cotton harvest and learn more about Fair Trade.
Liz witnessed first hand how much care goes into making our clothing and those items are on sale now!
Our new autumn winter catalogue will be out soon. Make sure you are one of the first to recieve it by requesting a copy today.
August 11, 2008
British beaches - a lesson in ecology.
What? Only 1 in 8 British children have been to the British seaside?
Tug of War - boys against girls.
Unbelievable! Especially when we are comparatively so close to the sea anywhere in Britain - 70 miles is the furthest you can get. We raise our kids to expect warmer, more luxurious beaches in France, Spain and Asia.
Do we spoil our children by raising their expectations? Being a New Town girl myself, I have an aversion to being cold. Perhaps it's also the fault of my Mauritian, Indian Ocean blood. Although, having a Swiss mum, I was taken to crystal blue, cold mountain lakes where I would entertain myself for hours bobbing around on floating logs, coming in only for barbecued bratwurst. I could be out for 14 hours at a time. I made a "camp" in the trenches of peaty woodland of Queensland near Bracknell before it was flattened to build new homes. Definitely, nature played a big part in my life, in my childhood and early teens. The British seaside did too, and Whitby, where my mum lives, is magical; fortune tellers, donkey rides, and even organic ice cream these days.
This weekend I rediscovered the British seaside, in windy North Wales - Anglesey to be precise. My mate Joey's family has had a caravan there for 50 years! People come back every summer, kids grow up together, develop crushes on each other, marry other people and vet each other’s partners, then hang out together, as do their kids. Heaven! A community that doesn't move, even though everything else these days seems so transient.
Olympic themed sandcastles
Saturday, the whole of Britain was under a rain cloud, and Wales seemed to get the worst of it. Sunday, the sun shone brilliantly and the annual sandcastle competition was held on the "Olympics" theme.
Jerome, my son, and his friend Iellen won Gold with their swimmers sculpture under the title ‘Free Tibet’. There were all kinds of interpretations of the ‘Birds Nest’ stadium- amazing stuff!
So, get a cup of tea and a wet suit and brace the British seaside – even north Wales holds treats we have near forgotten.
July 22, 2008
Safia on the box in Tokyo as her autobiography jumps to 26th on Amazon.
Murakami Ryu is one of my favourite writers so what a pleasure to be able to meet him when I appeared on Cambria Kyuden which aired on Tokyo TV this week. The co-presenter is so gorgeous she makes me feel like a "blob"!
Usually I get so nervous doing TV and radio interviews in Japanese. I arrived in Japan from London that afternoon, had a shower and went straight over to the studio to meet Murakami and the team at Cambria Kyuden. Fortunately, I was too exhausted to be nervous, felt like I was in a dream, and the TV producer Mr Haramura was a real honey sending me positive vibes (he’s traveled around Nepal and Bangladesh with me for weeks and knows all about Fair Trade and the constant struggles we face!). Murakami Ryu was such a warm person, I instantly felt at ease - in fact, at parts, it felt like talking to an old friend at my favourite jazz venue the Blue Note.
Two other social entrepreneurs were featured; Murata Sayaka of Kamonohashi Project who rehabilitates Cambodian child prostitutes and Komazaki Hiroki of Florence, a nanny service set up to look after the sick children of working mums. Both were totally inspiring! It makes me feel so proud of the social enterprise movement that is taking Japan by storm with People Tree at its forefront. Social enterprise is likely to become the biggest catalyst of social change in the next decade.
At the People Tree shop in Tokyo I also did a signing of my autobiography which has now jumped to number 26 on Amazon Japan’s Best Sellers List! It’s great that so many people are interested in reading about how I started People Tree and business that can make a difference. I would love to be able to tell that tale in English as well so if anyone out there wants to help me publish it do that get in touch!
Thank you, TV programme Cambria Kyuden, for helping put the story of People Tree to 2,000,000 last night – our server nearly crashed!
July 07, 2008
Make Fair Trade a priority at the G8
People Tree supporters in Parliament to remind Gordon Brown to keep to the ‘green revolution’ that he promised to take to the G8
What’s the talk surrounding this year’s G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan? It’s been all about the global economy, all about global food shortages, all about climate change…
But, wait – why is the all encompassing approach to international trade not even mentioned in any of the publicity yet??? Why isn’t Fair Trade a priority on the agenda when it brings the concerns already on the table under its umbrella-approach to global business?
Fair Trade isn’t just about paying a fair price – it’s about the environment, it’s about helping communities in the developing world become sustainable, it’s about bettering the global economy, it’s about reducing CO2 emissions. Make it a priority.
Join People Tree and voice the opinion that Fair Trade should be a priority at the G8
June 25, 2008
Tokyo Two - Greenpeace activists bullied by state
There’s nothing that makes my blood boil more than when people who stand up for human rights, animal rights and environmental issues are bullied by the state. The Japanese police arrested two Greenpeace activists who exposed a whale meat scandal involving a Government sponsored whaling programme.
Photocaptions
Left - Whale meat obtained by Greenpeace in Japan, during an investigation into large-scale theft of meat from the Japanese government-sponsored Southern Ocean whaling programme. A four month investigation by Greenpeace exposed claims by current and former crew that not only was thousands of dollars worth of meat stolen each year, but officials from the government's Institute of Cetacean Research and the fleet operators Kyodo Senpaku, know about the embezzlement, but ignore it, even though it is the Japanese tax payer which funds the expeditions.
©Greenpeace/Naomi Toyoda
Right - Greenpeace Japan Whales campaign coordinator, Junichi Sato, holds up one of the pieces of whale meat obtained by Greenpeace during an investigation into large-scale theft of meat from the Japanese government-sponsored Southern Ocean whaling programme.
©Greenpeace/Naomi Toyoda
The two activists Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, have been held in prison for 10 days and the Greenpeace offices in Tokyo ransacked by 40 police officers who seized computers, documents and mobiles – and their crime? What they were trying to do was show evidence of expensive cuts meat worth more than $10,000 were being illicitly removed by the crew of the whaling boat. The activists were not trying to get to the crew of the boat but at the bureaucrats who are involved in this scandal. The Japanese tax payer is funding this whaling programme to the tune of $5,000,000 a year.
I am joining other leading activists in Japan to call for their release together with almost 150,000 people who have offered their support - I hope you will encourage others to take action also, you can sign the petition on-line here
I remember a whaling conference in Kyoto, Japan, where stands were set up to offer the general public whale meat to imply that this is an integral part to traditional Japanese cuisine. The truth is eating whale meat was introduced after World War II when other meat and fish was difficult to come by – except for in a few port towns whose residents would eat whale meat very occasionally.
Whaling for “scientific purposes” is bad enough without wasting tax payer’s money and making the top bureaucrats richer and allowing them to feast on prime cuts of whale meat.
