New Marketing Intern
21 Jan 2012 1 Comment
Welcome aboard to our new Marketing intern, Bernie!
Bernie is joining us during her fourth semester at St. Edward’s University just up the road on South Congress. She is a music lover and self-proclaimed “film nerd”. She also has a passion and talent for photography and writing that she will be sharing with us during her time here at Ten Thousand Villages of Austin-keep an eye out for these awesome skills in our upcoming blogs!
One of her favorite hobbies is going to shows and taking pictures…
During her time here, Bernie’s main tasks will be promoting Ten Thousand Villages offsite sales and events and developing an e-mail marketing strategy.
We are sure that her fun-loving spirit will fit right in here at Ten Thousand Villages, and we are so excited to work with her over the next few months!
Human Trafficking and Fair Trade
20 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Artisan, Austin, Coffee, Environment, FairTrade, Holiday, Partners, Products, Volunteer Tags: Human Trafficking Awareness Day
Many people do not realize the simple act of buying fair trade helps to combat the world wide problem of human trafficking. Although Human Trafficking Awareness Day, which took place on January 11th, has already passed, we of course did not let this memorable day pass us by. In consideration of this day, we are exploring the relationship between fair trade and slave free supply chains that reduce the demand for trafficked labor.
The United States government considers human trafficking to include all of the criminal conduct involved in forced labor and sex trafficking, essentially the conduct involved in reducing or holding someone in compelled service. This act of modern slavery can take multiple forms; including forced labor, sex trafficking, bonded labor, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, and child soldiers. Victims of trafficking are often mislead into taking jobs that appear to be legitimate or sold into a trade by someone they know. More than 33,000 victims of trafficking were identified in 2010, but the actual number of victims is estimated to be in the millions. Hundreds of thousands of trafficked persons are transported in the United States each year.
The U.S. Department of Labor has identified numerous goods produced by child or forced labor around the world; including cotton, textiles, silver, gold, ceramics, cocoa, coffee, and tea. One of the easiest ways to fight against these forms of human trafficking is to buy fair trade certified products. When a person buys fair trade, they are buying products priced in a way that ensures workers are fairly compensated for the time, labor, and materials needed to make the good. When a worker receives a fair wage they can buy food, clothing, and shelter and improve their quality of life.
Volunteers and customers alike—remember that your time and purchases at Ten Thousand Villages helps to promote fair trade while also reducing the demand for trafficked labor around the world!
-Meredith Melecki, Ten Thousand Villages Board of Directors Secretary
Favorite Things Contest… Enter Today!
19 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in FairTrade
So far our Favorite Things Contest has been going well!
We have gotten an overwhelming response with lots of great submissions by our customers and volunteers.
But the question remains… what are some of YOUR favorite Ten Thousand Villages items? Share them with us! Check out our video below to learn how to enter the contest for a chance to win a $20 gift card to our store. Maybe it could be put toward purchasing your favorite item? 
But hurry! You only have 4 more days left!
Farewell to our Fall 2011 Marketing Intern!
11 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in FairTrade
As this semester comes to an end, sadly so does our marketing intern’s time with us. Eris contributed so much to Ten Thousand Villages, and she will be greatly missed.
Alice May, Volunteer and Intern Coordinator, says of Eris, “We have thoroughly enjoyed Eris’ sweet spirit, her passion for fair trade, and her creative eye. She has truly brought our marketing to the next level!”
A few designs by Eris…
Our volunteers might recognize this design by Eris–its the banner at the top of the volunteer e-mails!
She also designed this sponsor logo found on Austin Eavesdropper!
Below, Eris describes her time here in her own words at Ten Thousand Villages of Austin:
“For the last three months, I’ve been interning at Ten Thousand Villages, which has been fun and inspiring. In general, my job included designing store signage, e-mails, and posters, posting events on online calendars and helping to plan the annual store art show fundraiser, One Reason Why. I’ve loved every project I’ve worked on and I’ve enjoyed it. I feel like I learned something that I can’t learn from school. Picking a color, font, images for designing is not difficult because I like it (well, sometimes it is difficult because I need to make the font clear and big, which doesn’t always match with the overall layout!). What I’ve learned is how a non-profit organization operates. It is amazing that there are so many events, celebrations and social hours that go on every month! Ten Thousand Villages is lively and so are the people who work/volunteer there. I think the main reason that Austin people love Ten Thousand Villages and want to be part of it is that there is so much fun at Ten Thousand Villages. One Reason Why is the first fund raising event I’ve participated in. It was a huge success. I attended every planning committee meeting so I knew how much effort, help and donations are needed to hold this event- I am glad I was part of it.
My favorite part of being an intern at Ten Thousand Villages is to reflect on what I’ve done. The posters I’ve designed are on the front door, the sale signage is next to the sale sections, the emails I’ve created are right in Ten Thousand Villages customers’ mailbox-and mine, for sure! Every time I see them, I feel proud of myself. I am happy I am able to do something that makes Ten Thousand Villages better. My other favorite parts of being an intern at Ten Thousand Villages is that the people here are so easy to work with. Kitty and Alice May are easy to reach if I do not quite understand the projects they want me to work on. Kitty always gives me great feedback on anything I design-she makes sure every word and image is right before we put them out. Becky is always laughing and happy. Kathy is extremely patient and is always helping people find something they want and Magpie is friendly to the customers. Alice May is my internship supervisor so she is the one I work with most often. I must say a special thanks to her because she shows respect and appreciation to the interns. She talks to interns and volunteers to see if they have any questions or if there is anything that they don’t feel comfortable working on. If you know you are working with people who are considerate, enthusiastic and energetic, you will definitely love your job!”
Eris will be greatly missed, and we wish her the best of luck in her final semester at UT and in all her future endeavors! Thank you, Eris, for sharing your time, energy, and talents with us here at Ten Thousand Villages-You will be hard to replace!
Holidays Around The World!
28 Nov 2011 2 Comments
Happy Holidays to all! In celebration of this holiday season, we have created a blog focusing on the holidays celebrated in the countries of the artisan groups who produce our most popular holiday items. The groups, items, and holidays are…
Raja Bannoura, producer of the Mosaic Holy Moment Nativity. This piece is made of olive wood, and is valued at $38. If you spin the star at the top, it plays a beautiful song. Raja Bannoura is actually not a group, but rather one man. He owns and runs the Raja Bannoura Workshop, which is based in Beit Sahour, a village on the east side of Bethlehem. Here, he produces hand-carved olive wood products such as this musical nativity. A holiday widely celebrated in the West Bank is Eid Al Adha, which means “festival of sacrifice”. This festival is celebrated in commemoration of the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God. Men, women, and children are expected to dress in their finest clothing to perform Eid prayer in a large congregation. People are also expected to make some sort of sacrifice, whether this is a sacrifice of meat to feed the poor, money, time, etc. In 2011, this holiday took place November 6-8.
The Women’s Multipurpose Co-op, producer of the Good News Tree Topper. This item is made using recycled newspapers and magazines, and is valued at $14. The Women’s Multipurpose Co-op helps women artisans work together in groups, obtain government help in skills training, buy raw materials, gain access to low interest loans and obtain titles to their land. The cooperative is located in Baguio City in the Philippines, which is actually the highest city in the Philippines. Rizal Day is an important holiday in the Philippines that commemorates the death of José Rizal, a national hero. This holiday takes place on December 30 every year. In history, this day has also been the day of inauguration for new presidents.
Prokritee, creators of the Multicolored Star Garland, which is by far one of our most popular holiday items. The garland is handmade from keya palm leaf and is just $6 per strand! Prokritee, located in Bangladesh, is an agency that provides managerial, product design and development, and marketing assistance to handicraft organizations in Bangladesh. The organization also provides jobs for poor rural women: widows, divorcees or heads-of-households, primarily rural, landless and with little or no income. By providing jobs for women, Prokritee improves women’s standard of living and helps them send their children to school. Victory Day is a national holiday celebrated in Bangladesh celebrated on December 16. On this day in 1971, the Pakistani Army surrendered to the Indo-Bangladeshi High Command in Dhaka, ending the 9 month-long Bangladesh Liberation War and 1971 Bangladesh atrocities.
Rajana Association of Cambodia, the group responsible for this Bird Family Menorah, which is made of recycled metal washers and screws and is valued at $34. The Rajana Association is a nonprofit organization for income generation and skills training, producing fair trade products using traditional Cambodian skills with contemporary designs. Rajana Association focuses on the rural and urban poor, and small producers of handicrafts. Rajana trains young Cambodians in traditional craft-making skills, as well as in accounting, marketing, computer courses and English. Through development of traditional craft-making skills, Rajana helps maintain and rebuild Cambodia’s rich cultural traditions, damaged in the country’s wars. Every year on December 10, Cambodians celebrate Human Rights Day which commemorates the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This holiday is celebrated across the world, but Cambodia is one of the few countries that recognizes it as an official public holiday, meaning that businesses, schools, etc. all shut down.
Manos Amigas is the final artisan group, and their holiday item is the Nativity in Flower Ornament. Originating in Spain and then Latin America, a retablo, or story box, contains figures that depict a faith story, often a nativity scene. Families also carry retablo for safety and good fortune when traveling and present them to hosts upon arrival at their home. Manos Amigas is a fair trade organization dedicated to the export of handicrafts and to alternative tourism. Manos Amigas, which means “Hands Joined in Friendship,” works with family workshops and with small business groups and associations that make a variety of handicrafts impoverished areas of Lima and the Andean highlands. Manos Amigas offers training workshops for their artisans. In Peru, in preparation for Christmas, Immaculate Conception, or, Inmaculada Concepción, is celebrated. This holiday is celebrated on December 8, and usually consists of a feast shared with friends and family. December 8 is nine months before the Roman Catholic Nativity of Mary, which is celebrated on September 8.
To learn more about the different artisan groups mentioned in this post, visit our website or come to our store! To keep up with all the holiday events and deals, “Like” us on facebook and follow us on twitter.
We wish you all a happy holiday season!
One Reason Why 2011 Recap!
06 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
in Artisan, Austin, FairTrade, Fundraising
If you attended this year’s One Reason Why Art Show Fundraiser, you know that it was a huge success. But how much of a success was it?
We reached our fundraising goal AND thanks to YOU, $1,300 will be donated to the Artisan Special Needs Fund, which supports training and education, disaster recovery, technology, and general funds for our artisan groups!
Read on to see how the evening went…
Guests mixed and mingled…
The food table had so many yummy organic, farm fresh treats, and was never empty thanks to everyone who brought food and helped serve it.
We “Ooooed” and “Ahhhhed” at the beautiful sparkly elephant from India.
From a relaxing “get-away” donated from Travaasa to photography sessions from Her Side Project, the silent auction was hard to resist!
Guests admired and purchased unique, one-of-a-kind fairly traded pieces of art… thanks to Art on 5th Gallery for hosting us!
…and, of course enjoyed the One Reason Why ’11 Signature Cocktail!
(donated by ID Soda, Amy’s Ice Cream, and Pecan Street Rum)
Then, guests swaggered out of the event with some sweet swag bags… we couldn’t let them leave empty handed!
Thanks again to all who helped plan and implement this fantastically successful event. We couldn’t have done it with all of your talents!
We hope all of you enjoyed the event as much as we did, and we look forward to seeing you again next year! If you enjoyed attending One Reason Why, follow us on twitter and “Like” us on facebook to find out about more upcoming events you might also enjoy! For more pictures, check out our flickr account.
Fair Well Fair Traders!
A Look Back
29 Sep 2011 2 Comments
in BenefitNight, Film Festival, Holiday, International Women's Day, Offsite, Operations, Partners, Special Event, Volunteer, World Caravan Sale
Our State of the Austin Village Address is taking place THIS Sunday, October 2 6-7 pm in the store! This meeting is an opportunity for staff, volunteers, board members, and customers to come together and discuss the progress the store has made in the past year and look forward to great successes to come. In honor of this event, here is a look back at some great memories that we made together from 2010-2011.
First off, lets journey back to our great Holiday celebrations from…
Valentine’s Day 2010, to…
Holidayss 2010. This is always a wonderful time as the store fills with both customers and beautiful items unique to these times of the year. This past season was particularly special as we ventured out into Barton Creek Mall and tried out selling from a mall kiosk, which was certainly an interesting experiment in many ways! Most importantly, it was also a wonderful opportunity for us to get the word out about fair trade to many people who were completely foreign to the concept.
Another wonderful holiday celebrated here at Ten Thousand Villages of Austin was International Women’s Day, celebrated in March 2011. Above we have the finalists at our International Women’s Day Award Ceremony. The categories for this award included: Humanitarianism, Environmentalism, and Animal Advocacy.
Another important holiday celebrated this past year at our store is one not many may know about, but surely quite a few would love it if they were to learn of its existence: World Chocolate Day…
This holiday, which takes place in September, was celebrated at our store with a competition between our volunteers. They each brought in their favorite fair trade chocolate recipe, and customers voted on their favorites. Ganache, anyone?!
Although holidays provided for great times in the store, we didn’t limit ourselves to just those designated days of celebrations! Here is a look at some of our Special Events from this past year…
Here we have our lovely ladies of the One Reason Why Planning Committee. One Reason Why was a fundraiser put on at The Gallery Black Lagood where we auctioned off some of our most impressive pieces. 2011 was our first year to have this fundraiser, and it was a huge success… We raised $5,000! Our 2nd Annual One Reason Why Fundraiser is coming up on October 27th… check out our website for more deets!
Courtesy of Tolly Moseley's Blog, Austin Eavesdropper
Courtesy of Tolly Moseley's Blog, Austin Eavesdropper
What a better way to celebrate World Fair Trade Day than with a Fair Trade Wine and Chocolate Pairing led by a professional sommelier? A HUGE thanks to Artworks Gallery for hosting us AND to Tolly Moseley from Austin Eavesdropper for the wonderful post she wrote putting our event on the map. We had a wonderful turn out and definitely hope to continue the fun next May!
Of course, we couldn’t celebrate World Fair Trade Day in May with just ONE event… we had to have 2! For our Annual Fair Trade Film Festival, we had a “Global Market” complete with music (i.e. the GREAT band picture above, Wino Vino), great vendors, and fun activities. We also showed documentaries that promote fair trade values, and had a panel of experts to engage festival participants in a dialogue between each movie. It was an incredibly enriching educational event– thanks to all who participated!
And last but not least, we can’t forget about the activities of our wonderful staff and volunteers! A VERY important day from last year was Inventory Day…
For Inventory Day, we shut down the store for a day and COUNTED like there was no tomorrow! Inventory Day 2011 = mission possible!
Although our volunteers and staff clearly know how to work hard, they can definitely play hard too! This was evidenced by our monthly social hours to some great places like Doc’s, Boticelli’s, Sno-Beach Hawaiian Shaved Ice, and Third Coast Coffee to name a few!
So as we can see, 2010-2011 was a FANTASTIC year here at Ten Thousand Villages of Austin, and we hope for an even better year to come! To hear more about our wonderful year passed, and our great year to come, don’t forget to attend our Annual Meeting Sunday, October 2 6-7 PM in the store. Hope to see you there!
(Written by Alyssa Haney, Ten Thousand Villages of Austin’s Social Media Intern)
