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Purchase
from Sustainable Villages around the World
Here
you will learn more about these initiatives and by purchasing some of
their products, you will be supporting sustainable livelihoods while expanding
businesses based on appropriate technology!
Gaviotas
is a village of about 200 people in Colombia, South America. For three
decades, Gaviotans -peasants, scientists, artists, and former street kids-
have struggled to build an oa sis
of imagination and sustainability in the remote, barren savannas of eastern
Colombia, an area ravaged by political terror. They have planted millions
of trees, thus regenerating an indigenous rainforest. They farm organically
and use wind and solar power. Every family enjoys free housing, community
meals, and schooling. There are no weapons, no police, no jail. There
is no mayor. The United Nations named the village a model of sustainable
development. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called Paolo Lugari the "inventor
of the world."
More information:
Friends of Gaviotas www.friendsofgaviotas.org
Book: "Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World" by Alan Weisman (1998)
Village
products:
Agua
pura tropical Gaviotas (Bottled water).
Auroville
is a city located in south India, 150 kms south of Chennai (Madras), intended
for up to 50,000 inhabitants from around the world. Today its inhabitants
number around 1,500 people, drawn from some thirty countries. They live
in 100 settlements of varying size, separated by village and temple lands
and surrounded by Tamil villages with a total population of over 35,000
people. Their activities are multifarious, and include afforestation,
organic agriculture, educational research, health care, village development,
appropriate technology, and building construction, information technology,
small and medium scale businesses, town planning, water table management,
cultural activities and community services.
More information: Auroville www.auroville.org
Global Ecovillage Network www.ecovillage.org
More about Auroville
Village
products:
Yoga
mats: Made from 100% pure cotton with a soft silk cotton padding,
these mats almost call you to yoga practice. Extremely comfortable,
they’re light, foldable, portable, and easily stored. Durable
and easily washed, they’re produced with great skill, care, and
the most environmentally friendly methods.
Yachana
Gourmet believes the future of the rainforest is inextricably
linked to the wellbeing of its inhabitants. Poverty and its causes inevitably
lead to environmental degradation. In an effort to alleviate poverty and
protect the rainforest, Yachana Gourmet supports Fair Trade practices
and buys directly from rural producer cooperatives and family farmers
cultivating cacao that is shade grown in the delicate rainforest of the
Ecuadorian Amazon, South America. Yachana Gourmet is an ecologically conscious,
socially progressive company
designed to purchase agricultural commodities grown in the rain forest,
add value to these products in the jungle, and open international markets.
Yachana Gourmet has created a fair market where none previously existed.
For local farmers, these favorable terms of trade have strengthened the
case for viable economic alternatives to unsustainable land uses, such
as unregulated logging, cattle ranching, and the cultivation of illicit
crops.
Village
products:
Jungle
Chocolate: Yachana Gourmet produces a unique chocolate product,
known as Yachana Jungle Chocolate, for export to the world directly
from the Amazon rainforest. Jungle Chocolate is the world's purest,
most flavorful chocolate, made from all-natural ingredients, such as
"cacao nacional", the most aromatic and rich variety of chocolate
bean on the planet.
 The
Maya Nut produced by the Equilibrium Fund is wild harvested
from rainforests by Nicaraguan and Guatemalan women. This program allows
these women to earn a fair wage while preserving the environment in their
remote and forgotten communities in some of the poorest regions of Guatemala
and Nicaragua, South America. The overall goal is to provide alternatives
to poaching and slash and burn agriculture in the buffer zone of the Maya
Biosphere Reserve, and to motivate community-based reforestation with
an economically viable forest crop.
More information: The Equilibrium Fund www.theequilibriumfund.org
Village
products:
The
Mayanut is a nutritious rainforest tree seed, which was once an important
staple food of pre-Columbian Maya civilizations because of its
high nutritional value and ease of harvest and storage.
 eShopAfrica.com
is a fair trade website based in Ghana, West Africa that sources traditional
arts and crafts direct from African artisans. Their products are supplied
by an ever growing community of artisans - many are from Ghana but from
other African countries including Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Mali - and they
are being joined by new artisans all the time. All their products meet
rigourous quality guidelines and artisans are paid fair (or more than
fair) prices. Its aim is to create sustainable businesses for African
artisans and to prove that ecommerce can work for small businesses in
Africa.
More Informaton: EshopAfrica
Village
products:
Mudcloth, Indigo and Kente shawls, Kente strips, hats, bags, T-shirts, glass beads, wax brass beads, table linens, Bolgatanga baskets, masks, candle holders, napkin rings, coffins, boxes, sculptures, dolls, barber signs, percussion & drums and more!
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