Christmas Shopping with a Conscious Pt. 1

On the evening of Halloween a few weeks ago, I braved the throngs of candy craving children and made a fairly out of character solo trip to the mall. I was scheduled to attend a costume party later that night and had not even given thought to what I was going to wear, and in an act of desperation stopped there hoping for inspiration. 

I didn’t find a costume (I ended up donning my Dad’s plush bear hat and my Brother-in-Love’s claw slippers and went as a Teddy Graham), but I did find myself face-to-face with row upon row of Christmas gift displays. I was stunned and a little panicked at the sight. Was it actually time to start thinking about Christmas shopping already?

Now, it is still a little early to start any major shopping expeditions (I tend to begin mine the week before Christmas, when you have to park illegally on parking lot medians just to get inside a shopping centre), but it’s never too early to start planning. 

I don’t know about your family, but mine is fairly difficult to shop for. They know what they like, and they usually already own it. Because of this, I usually end up defaulting to your typical and overdone last minute gifts. You know, the old standbys such as socks, underwear, CDs, snowflake themed pajamas and movie gift certificates?  

Bo-rrrring. 

I’ve set a goal to do something different this year. I want to purchase gifts that are unique, that are globally and socially focused, and that will make a difference in someone’s life. 

And thus, I've decided to create my OWN Christmas gift-giving guide, for the socially conscious. If you’re like me and feel like rebelling against the traditional hum-drum Christmas gift, here are a few (of many) ideas to get you started.

For the business-minded: Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make a micro-loan to an entrepreneur in a developing country? Four-year-old Kiva Microfunds makes it possible. The site operates to “connect people to alleviate poverty.”

This is how it works: potential loaners browse through photographs and bios of entrepreneurs from around the world on the

 Kiva website. Once they’ve selected the entrepreneur they want to support, they do so on the website using Pay Pal. The entrepreneur uses the loan to either start or build upon their own business, thus improving life for themselves, their family and their community. The loaner can keep up to date with their progress through email journals, and can track repayments (the lenders are expected to pay the money back in full).

Once the loaner has their money back, they can choose to lend it to a new entrepreneur, donate it to Kiva (which is a nonprofit organization that operates on donations) or withdraw the money from their Pay Pal account.

Gift certificates are available, so the lucky recipient will have the ability to scour the website themselves and choose their own entrepreneur to loan to. 

Check it out!  www.Kiva.org. 

<3

For the animal-lover: Who doesn’t have someone that fits into this criteria on their Christmas shopping list? While I’m sure they love the cat calendars and paw-printed book marks, why not make their wildest dreams come true and buy them a live elephant?

Okay, that may be a bit of wishful thinking, but for $50 you can sponsor an elephant at the Calgary Zoo in yours or your loved ones name. With each sponsorship comes a certificate, a “biofact” sheet, and a stuffed elephant. Cute! Other animals available for sponsorship include a giraffe, koala, lion and others. Click here for more information!

A more local approach for those looking for the paw-fect gift (anyone?) is the Alberta Guide Dogs puppy sponsorship program. Sponsor a guide dog in training (in your loved ones name, of course) for $250 and become an integral part of a program that greatly enhances the lives of blind young people (or individuals with autism). The recipient will get to keep a framed glossy photo of their absolutely adorable little puppy, a letter giving information about their sponsored pooch, and quarterly “pupdates.” 

The best part? At the end of the 22 month training period, the sponsor will receive a picture of their dog with its chosen partner, as well as a letter outlining the many ways their life has changed since the arrival of their canine friend. 

I WANT!

For more information about the puppy sponsorship program, contact Susan Deike at Alberta Guide Dog Services at 403-258-0819.

<3

 

For the green guru: Take a deep breath in. Now let it out...slowly. Although it wasn’t wrapped in fancy wrapping paper and adorned with ribbons, Mother Nature just gave you a very important gift. Why not return the sentiment? The Nature Conservancy offers eco-friendly gift ideas that are better than the bees knees. 

Give your hard to shop for uncle a $50 subscription to the quarterly Nature Conservancy magazine, which will in turn help to finance water conservation activities that are working to protect the flow of fresh water to people around the world.

Or, adopt an acre in Australia in the name of your travel-crazy sister. Also for $50, the funds will go towards protecting and restoring Australia's Gondwana Link, which contains a third of Australia's known flowering plants. She’ll get a gift package announcing the donation, a personalized certificate with a photograph of the site, a subscription to Nature Conservancy, and a bunch of other sweet things. 

You can adopt acres all over the world, in places like East Africa, Brazil, Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea. Check it out at adopt.nature.org.

Happy planning!

Human Trafficking on CRAIGSLIST

For the past decade, the ever-increasing popularity of online classified sites has been pulling the carpet out from underneath its’ elderly predecessor, the daily newspaper. Now, buyers can enter a simple keyword into an online search database and discover thousands of items instantly.

As a result of few limitations, online classified sites have become a plethora of ‘for sale’ goodies ranging from children’s toys, cameras, computers, apartments, animals, jobs, and businesses.

For the ease and convenience of the friendly online buyer, nearly everything imaginable can be purchased with little or no effort.

Including flesh and blood.

According to an article recently published on Not For Sale.com, an online campaign fighting to abolish human trafficking, the internet is further enabling the shadowy world that is the sex trade industry.

Such activity takes place every day on Craigslist, a popular online web community which serves over 450 cities worldwide.

The Craigslist question and answer ‘fact sheet’ boasts that “just about anything” can be found on the site, providing an inadvertently direct and hauntingly true statement by the site administrators.

“There’s a dark side of Craigslist that most users don’t see,” wrote Katherine Chon, the Executive Director of the Polaris Project, one of the largest anti-human trafficking organizations in the U.S.

“In the ‘Erotic’ section, human traffickers have found Craigslist to be one of the most efficient, effective (and free) ways to post children and women for sale.”

For example, a young woman in the United States was convicted with involving minors in a prostitution ring that relied heavily on the site for advertising. Before she was old enough to vote, 19 year old Justine Alex Reisdorf began recruiting female students in the Eagan school district near her home city of Burnsville, Minn.

She advertised the services of minors nearly exclusively on Craigslist for seven months without any intervention from site moderators. Authorities only discovered the operation when a young girl, who had at one time worked for Reisdorf, tipped off a police officer who worked at her High School in June of 2007.

This case is not isolated. There have been numerous similar convicted cases in the United States to date and likely hundreds of others that have not yet been discovered. In Canada, there have been no convicted instances of this, but with more than 30 million new classified ads being self-published by Craigslist users worldwide each month, there is no doubt that it is happening.

Many may argue that the lack of moderation is what is responsible for such cases, but in truth, it appears unclear whether or not Craigslist staff moderate the site at all. The for-profit company currently has only 25 hired employees and relies heavily on the public for “community moderation,” using a flagging system to ensure that no free postings violate the terms of use.

When contacted to provide a statement about the safety and monitoring of the site, Craigslist representatives at the customer service office in San Francisco, California., were rude and hurried. All questions were referred back to either the online information page or an e-mail address that even they were not sure of.

When e-mailed as suggested, a response of one sentence was given, including the link to the Craigslist online privacy policy- right back to where the research began.

“It’s completely unbelievable. You sell cars, and you sell children…all in the same place,” said Shandelle Skaley, an administrator and director at the Word of Life church in Calgary, Alta.

Skaley runs the ‘Compassionate’ service, put on by the church for youth and young adults at the University of Calgary every week. She also assists a group of young people from her church in raising awareness and money to fight social injustices both locally and worldwide.

“We basically just started teaching about AIDS, poverty, the sex trade and slavery, and we try to mobilize these young people and get them thinking creatively about how to make a difference in the world,” she said.

“It’s not only education, but it’s also figuring out actually what can be done to change this.”

Skaley was the forerunner in organizing the ‘Compassionate Benefit Concert,’ a live concert and fundraiser that took place at The House coffee sanctuary in Kensington on July 25, 2008. The event raised $1,000 in support of ‘Children of the Bridge,’ an organization in Thailand that rescues children from the sex trade industry.

Oftentimes, when one thinks of modern-day slavery, images of children living in far-off, impoverished countries come to mind. Most either fail to, or choose not to think of the young women and children being forced to have sex with random strangers in their own country, city, or worse yet, community.

Earlier this year, in the Canadian city of Niagra Falls, Ontario, a 25 year old Toronto man named Imani Nakpamgi was charged with the trafficking of two underage girls for personal profit. According to an article published in the Toronto Star in May, Nakpamgi was fully aware that both girls were underage, being 14 and 15 when he first started acting as their pimp.

The Star reported that the younger girl worked for Nakpamgi for two months and was carrying his child at the time of the court hearing. Crown prosecutor John Raftery told the court that the older girl, who is now 18, began working for him in September 2005.

"He used intimidation and threats" to control her, Raftery told the Star, saying that he would kidnap her younger brother if she “ever got out of line.” She finally went to the police when a client robbed her at gunpoint.

Both girls had been advertised on the internet.

Skaley believes that some of the only ways to combat the internet sex slave phenomenon are education, awareness and inspiration.

While Craigslist has recently made efforts to reduce this type of crime from taking place on their websites, more needs to be done.

People need to know that this is happening, and a site that attracts over 12 billion views worldwide per month could be the perfect place to start. Through disclaimers, enhanced information pages and a more attentive staff, Craigslist could indeed become part of the solution instead of a big part of the problem.

“It does happen here…to look away and say that it doesn’t is inhumane,” said Skaley.

“Even if you’re not causing the problem, allowing it to happen is just as bad. That is why I think it’s so important to educate and inspire people. If we can get them thinking, maybe we can make a difference."

Photo illustration by Andy Nichols, www.andynichols.com.