Awaz Handcrafts NEW Office + Shop @ Hatch in Portland | Listings for Holiday Market Series 2013

The Holidays are here - and our team at Awaz is launching new things, just in time for your ethical holiday shopping.
First - our new name, Awaz Handcrafts - to define our name and what we do better, we're adding Handcrafts. What do you think? 
Did you know Awaz means Voice in Hindi? We're voices for fair trade, for women and for handcrafts - let's work together to fuel it. Shop our collection of unique handcrafted gifts that make a difference - and fuel positive change with us!

Second - Starting in December, we have a one stop shop for all that we do. Now you can shop, connect with us, collaborate and join forces at our co-working space. FINALLY.
Read more about the new Hatch community ->>>>>
http://www.hatchthefuture.org/

NEW PORTLAND OFFICE AND SHOP

beginning December 2, 2013

@ Hatch
2420 NE Sandy Blvd.,
Portland, Oregon, 97232

Do you have a mission driven enterprise and want to sell your products in our Retail Shop?

Are you looking for affordable office space to scale your enterprise?

We are looking for like-minded organizations and businesses who would like to share our private office space with us. Affordable and low-cost. Co-workers get access to the abundant resources and benefits of the Hatch community and its networks.

Open House Tuesday November 19, 2013 – 4 – 7pm

Other times available for viewing – just contact us!

Email sarah@voiceforempowerment.com or call 503-995-5095 to get involved!

You're invited

Awaz Handcraft 
Ethical Holiday Market Series 2013

Sunday, November 17^th

10am – 2pm

4^th Annual Fair Trade Holiday Marketplace at First Unitarian Church

First Unitarian Church

Fuller Room

1011 SW 12th Ave.

Portland, Oregon

We return for the fourth year at the First Unitarian Church annual holiday fair trade market. We organize and co-sponsor this sale as members of the Northwest Fair Trade Coalition in partnership with the church Economic Justice Action Group to build greater community and support for fair trade in their congregation. We will be joined by Zimbabwe Artists Project, Imani Project, Thembanathi and other vendors offering unique holiday gifts.

Friday, November 22^nd

10am – 6pm

4^th Annual international Art and Gift Market sponsored by Women’s Opportunity Worldwide

Broadway Commerce Building, 44 West Broadway, Eugene Oregon

Corner of Willamette and Broadway

We are a member of WOWW and will be joined by Friendship with Cambodia, Thembanathi, CREATE and Anando Foundation downtown Eugene for a unique holiday gift show benefiting women and their families, locally and globally.

Women’s Opportunity Worldwide (WOW) was formed in the Spring of 2010 to provide opportunities for networking and collaboration among the many nonprofit organizations based in Oregon’s Willamette Valley working to benefit women internationally.

Sunday, December 1

10am – 4pm

World Aids Day Celebration sponsored by Portland Area Global Aids Coalition

First Unitarian Church

Buchan Building

1011 SW 12th Ave.

Portland, Oregon

Food, Live Music, Children’s Activities, Fair Trade Market and Information Tables -

Join us in celebrating amazing global progress in “Getting to Zero”.

Learn how you can be more involved in supporting the Portland community to address the impact of aids. Awaz is a member of PAGAC and actively involved in this network of over 200 global justice organizations around Portland addressing global health and poverty issues. Take a minute and join us in honoring the women, communities and organizations around the world working to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Learn more about the progress made and how you can help now!

Stay tuned for a film screening of Fire in the Blood in Portland in January 2014 by PAGAC – as governments right now weigh the passing of the next biggest NAFTA, the Transpacific Partnership – which will extend patents and furthermore keep affordable AIDS medicine and healthcare out of the hands of those who need it most.

Friday, December 6^th

4pm – 7pm

Wintergreen Arts and Craft Fair at National College of Natural Medicine

NCNM Annex

049 SW Porter St, Portland, OR 97201

Awaz is excited to be invited this year to join NCNM’s Art and Craft Fair. We are blessed to have the oldest accredited naturopathic medical college in North America right here in Portland. They offer gradudate programs in naturopathic medicine, classical Chinese medicine, integrative medicine research and nutrition blending ancient healing wisdom with modern science.

Come early to have tea at the Sokenbicha tea house at the Min Zidell Healing Garden that features a botanical teaching garden and labyrinth.

NCNM has great one day workshops, ongoing community classes and more to discover and learn about – join us!

Sunday, December 8^th

10am – 2pm

4^th Annual Fair Trade Holiday Marketplace at First Presbyterian Church

First Presbyterian Church

1200 SW Alder St., Portland, OR 97205

We return for the second year to participate at the annual holiday fair trade market at First Presbyterian Church downtown Portland. We organize and co-sponsor this sale as members of the Northwest Fair Trade Coalition in partnership with the church Fair Trade Leadership Team to build greater community and support for fair trade in their congregation. We will be joined by Zimbabwe Artists Project, Thembanathi and other vendors offering unique holiday gifts, food and snacks. 

Al Jazeera America Fault Lines: Made in Bangladesh Video. Children as Young as 12 Are Making Clothing for Old Navy in Bangladesh

I found these two videos today on ecouterre. They blew my mind when I took a minute to watch them.

It was clothing for Wal-Mart’s Faded Glory brand that was being made when the factory in Rama Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed. Still the families who lost lives have yet to be compensated.

Go Behind the Scenes in Bangladesh Garment Factories and see how Wal-Mart evades accountability for their cut-throat business practices. 

Thanks to Al Jazeera  America’s latest edition in Fault Lines – holding the world accountable.

It's not only Wal-Mart. It's Old Navy, it's everyone else doing business as usual. Watch this short 2.5 minute video and see why Awaz is working to do something different.

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/2013/8/inside-a-bangladeshclothingfactory.html

Help Workers stand up against Wal-Mart. Learn more about the Making Change at Wal-Mart Campaign.

and don't forget to fuel the change....shop ethical clothing.

AWAZ 2013 Event Schedule for Portland local and national - COME HAVE FUN WITH US!

Our summer season is upon us. For another year, we bring the Awaz shop to your community for some summer celebration. Join us for great music events, festivals and street fairs - decked out in the finest quality ethical clothing. We have expanded our Clothing Line to offer a wide array of western and mandarin collar Men's Shirts as well as women's new Indian-inspired Tunics and Kurtas and Organic Jersey Cotton dresses and yoga wear. We always have something new that you'll love!

* Check Back - We're always adding new events!
Anahata Music Festival – Saturday, June 15^th (www.anahatafestivalpdx.com)

Hump Day – July 10 (www.humpdaypdx.com ) - 50% OFF Jewelry Sale!
Mississippi Street Fair – July 13^th (www.mississippiave.com)

Bend Summer Festival – July 12-14^th

Enjoying 23 years of success, the Bank of Cascades Bend Summer Festival draws 75,000 visitors for a weekend like no other. Festival features fine artists and craftspeople, artisans and performers, and five stages of some of the best regional and national blues, rock and jazz. 

http://www.c3events.com/upcoming-events-2013/The_Bank_of_the_Cascades_Bend_Summer_Festival

Last Thursday on Alberta - July 25th  (http://www.lastthursdayonalberta.com/ )

Hump Day – August  7^th (www.humpdaypdx.com )

Multnomah Village Days – August 17^th (www.multnomahvillage.org )
Hawthorne/Division Street Fair – August 18^th (http://thinkhawthorne.com/events/ )

Portland India Festival @Pioneer Square – August 18^th 

Join us for a showcase of our ethical fashion line at Portland's premiere Indian event while we practice the art of block printing and share a booth with DJ Prashant!

India Festival is Oregon's premiere Indian cultural event of the year filled with tastes, sounds and sights of diverse India. ICA will host India Festival on August 18th, 2013 from 11am to 9pm.

Please be there with your family and friends to get a taste of Indian culture for FREE and get a glimpse of this growing, warm and welcoming community. This is a celebration of India’s independence and cultural heritage. The festival has grown every year with record crowds and new vendors.

Don’t miss out on a memorable event that draws crowds from all over the West Coast!

(http://icaportland.org/events/india-festival/ 

Hempstalk Portland - September 7-9th

N Kelly Point Park Rd

Portland, OR 97203

We'll have our full line of Hemp and Cotton Clothing, hemp bags, wallets, belts and sun hats for your fashionable hemp lifestyle, the natural way.
Portland's annual Hempstalk Festival in Portland, Oregon advocates decriminalization of marijuana for medicinal, industrial, and recreational use. Founded in 2005 by the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation, the festival takes place the weekend after Labor Day in September, and features food vendors, live music, guest speakers and information booths. This public event has always been free to attend.
http://www.hempstalk.org/festival/

Belmont Street Fair – September 14^th (http://belmontdistrict.org/whats-happening/street-fair )

Veg Fest @ the Convention Center – September 21-22nd   ( http://nwveg.org/vegfest )

World Fair Trade Day May 11, 2013 in Portland - Rocks the TPP with Oregon Fair Trade Campaign

SATURDAY May 11, 2013 is the day this year!

WFTD is the largest Fair Trade event of the year in N. America, and events take place May 4-19 in 2013. Around 100,000 people attend hundreds of celebrations to promote Fair Trade and campaign for trade justice together with farmers & artisans. LEARN MORE >

{ONLINE SHOP SALE} 

anyone who buys online this Saturday gets a
 FREE box of Equal Exchange Organic Fair Trade Tea
 and a gift from India!

SHOP NOW >

This year, AWAZ joins with our local advocacy partners here in Portland to oppose the next biggest Free Trade Agreement on the International Day of Action. It's because of FTAs that create the foundation and rules for Corporations to exploit workers and the environment around the world, that the Fair Trade Movement, what I call, the People's Movement, is so important. We need to change our foreign policy today.

THIS Saturday, May 11th, join the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign and many other organizations for World Fair Trade Day and the People's Assembly on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The event is from 1-4pm, (doors open at 12:30pm) at First Unitarian Church (SW 12th Ave and Main St., Portland), and will include speakers from a variety of groups, as well as break-out sessions to do some action planning. This is an international day of action, held in solidarity with groups all over the world as the current round of TPP negotiations take place in Lima, Peru. 

AWAZ will have a table selling goodies and passing out FREE Fair World Project Publications for a chance for YOU to win a FREE trip to Peru!

On May 11, just prior to a new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiating round in Peru, we call on the 99% who are harmed by corporate globalization to oppose the TPP.

There are many reasons for people to come together on this date:

- The TPP undermines access to fundamental medicines by extending monopoly protections for Big Pharma.

- The TPP empowers corporations to sue governments for environmental and health measures they do not like

- The TPP creates a race to the bottom on working conditions, environmental standards and all kinds of public regulations

- The TPP prioritizes large-scale corporate agriculture (GMOs, antibiotics, etc) over sustainable local farming


We will hear from guest speakers including Barbara Byrd - OR AFL-CIO and Ann Pickar - Portland Area Global AIDs Coalition, Benjamin Gerritz - Positive Force NW, and Peruvian environmental justice leader César Ipenza, from Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental speaking via Skype. The speakers panel will be followed by break out groups to further discuss issues and plan for next steps.
We will join trade justice advocates in Lima, Sydney, Ontario and many more cities and towns around the world that are holding community assemblies to discuss the problems with the TPP and the free trade model.

Multi-national community resistance put a freeze on the WTO. It stopped the Free Trade Area of the Americas. It can stop the TPP!

RSVP on Facebook! 

For more information on the PDX People's Assembly, please call Oregon Fair Trade Campaign (503) 736-9777 or email elizabeth@oregonfairtrade.org,

Sponsored by: Alliance for Democracy, Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, Oregon AFL-CIO, Jobs with Justice, Working Families Party, Economic Justice Action Group of the First Unitarian Church.

To learn more about events in other communities visit: http://stopthetpp.webs.com/call-to-action

Kala Gouda Arts Festival : Craft Melas for Indian NGOs, new work caring for the earth, we see Stree Shakti

(above: signage in MESH's fair trade shop showcasing India's new national Fair Trade brand - this weaver produces the Awaz Table Linen Collection in a Leprosy Colony outside of Delhi)

Every time I go to India I’m often moving around a lot visiting organizations, collecting stories and so busy spending time with people and  that I don’t have much time to share those stories with you, our supporters.

There are so many beautiful community development programs we are connected to here, learning from, supporting, nurturing and building upon that this time, it is about the stories. It is about documenting and sharing the social change that’s happening on the ground here, the life and culture of the people and more about the work we do here in India so that you too can learn, live through our experiences and find more ways that you too can be more involved.

I commit to you to share one blog a week of the Awaz 3-month work in India.

It was a beautiful blessing that this time my arrival was routed through Mumbai in Southern India as the annual Kala Gouda Arts Festival was happening.  I was most excited to know that I could see one of our artisan partners, Stree Shakti, at this exhibition. 

From the beginning, it was my work with Stree Shakti in 2008 in Purkal Village in the Himalayas that inspired me to start Awaz. I spent 6 months working with Mr. and Mrs. Swamy from the early beginnings of this income generation program for widowed and marginalized women helping to grow and expand their work. From a crowded home filled with women stitching and quilting, Stree Shakti (meaning Women’s Power) now boasts 100 women organized into 10 Self Help Groups who now have their own production center and on-site day care center to host their work. 

I spear headed a Capital Campaign for their Production Center in 2008 and with great joy, we found a donor who made a kind donation to fund the building in honor of their son who past away. 

They now are struggling to keep up with production and are seeking funding for a new training program for 50 new women. 

While I’m here, I intend to help garner support for this program and use any donations to Awaz to provide a grant to the new training program. Please consider a small donation through our website to help lift more women out of poverty in India.

I met Maneet, Vicky and Akash representing Stree Shakti at their stall. Their beautiful handcrafted quilts, pillow covers and fashion accessories stand out amongst all other stalls. When there are so many groups doing weaving and blockprinting and every other traditional craft, they’re one of the only doing hand quilted products. They’ve now achieved the Craftmark, authentic Indian handcraft labeling for their quilting and their work is renown throughout India.

The Growth with Fair Trade for Stree Shakti

They’ve been sourcing better quality fabrics and working hard on quality control over the years that have improved the look of their products  - instantly I can see the growth in their work.

This is truly one of the best feelings experiencing the growth and success of a group you’ve worked so closely with.

After I finally convinced Mr. and Mrs. Swamy to join the Fair Trade movement in India in 2010, the women and the organization are benefiting so much more.

They’re store on site has become part of the new national Fair Trade branded shops and is bringing more customers on a daily basis.

They’re staff have undergone more trainings, they’re part of annual fair trade celebrations, they’re invited to more product development workshops and are now part of this larger network filled with resources and experience to help them grow.

We sponsored a design training from Jaya, an experienced textile designer who works with artisan groups, to help the organization develop Production Plans, implement better management and controls and develop new products with better quality fabrics and prints.

Read more about this workshop from Jaya her self here.

At their stall, I got to catch up on their latest designs and work.

Their Baby Quilts are one of their key products we offer and I saw many new themes we’ll start offering to our customers, including this new fabulous Birthday theme.

Their pillow covers were decorated with intricate hand embroidery of elephants and kalamkari block print fabrics and other modern themes that looked fabulous.  We have a custom order from a store in Portland to implement some designs on pillows with this group while we’re here.

The scarves or “stoles” that Jaya developed with Maneet, their new Designer, were displayed nicely with beautiful embroidery and prints. They’re a unique accessory that showcases the best of India’s craft that I think we’ll order a few of this time. For the last few years, Jaya has been in touch with our groups sharing her knowledge and experience to guide them in whatever way she can and we’re very thankful.

Nowadays Stree Shakti, like many of the groups we work with, are attending some 10-15 exhibitions a year to sell their work in some of the biggest cities all over India. These art and craft exhibitions or “melas” as they are called in India serve as platform for NGOs and craft organizations to get exposure and showcase their work.  “Mela” is a Sanskrit word meaning “gathering,” and it’s used to describe all kinds of get-togethers in India. Many buyers interested in Indian craft come specifically for these melas to source their goods and make connections. Dastkar, whom we learned about during our first visit to India in 2005, has been one of the core organizations in India working to preserve and promote traditional craft for a long time - they now organize great craft melas all over India.

Most of all though, I love these melas because they serve as great opportunities for the women to travel outside of their communities and interact with the customers about their work. They get the feedback and feel the praise for what they do. This in itself is empowering for the women. The women can’t travel all the time, but many times they do. Sadhna, another group we work with, sponsors annual Exposure Trips for women to go outside and visit other women’s organizations to learn and experience their work.

This mela was very exciting and fresh. It’s been two years since my last trip to India and the country has grown so much, not to mention the inflation.

There were many NGOs and also individual artisans and small businesses, like Farmer’s Markets in the U.S., displaying their new, cutting edge, handcrafted work.

In addition to many works of art like this addressing different social issues, as more and more young people are getting involved in activism.

From organizations promoting environmental conservation and recycling to eco-friendly kids toys and games, it was great to see all the good work and people thinking in new ways.