How to buy a goat for Christmas

From WDAF, a video on how to buy a Christmas goat for a family in the under-developed world.

Giving up a gift to end poverty

Students from Calgary are challenging others to give up a Christmas gift to help stop poverty. People taking up the challenge can register at Uend.org and select a sustainable development project. In fact, this is a pretty good gift idea itself.

From The Edmonton Journal, writer Sarah McGinnis introduces us to the four students starting the challenge.

Betty Wang, Derrick Yick, Sherri Cui and Yiti Wang launched the campaign after encountering the UEnd Foundation at a recent youth summit.

UEnd is a Calgary-based charity that helps people support poverty-ending programs around the world.

The quartet of friends, who attend Western Canada High School, decided to each ask a loved one to donate to the foundation in lieu of giving them a present this year.

"Over the Christmas season, while we're sitting here enjoying ourselves, there are other people who really need the help," said Wang, 16.

"It feels good to be able to start something and help them out."

Hoping to encourage others to follow their lead, the students headed to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to help spread the word.

A couple more holiday gift ideas

Columnist Carol Wise talks about travel for the Seattle Times. Wise asks the question if we really do need more stuff this holiday season, and has a couple of ideas on how to give a gift that gives back.

Help someone interested in world travel connect with a sweet-potato seller in Tanzania or a butcher in Nicaragua through Kiva.org. This is the San Francisco nonprofit that uses the Internet to link small lenders with entrepreneurs in 187 countries, including the United States.

Gift certificates (www.kiva.org) for $25 are available for loans that can be made to small business people whose bio, pictures and business appear on the site.

Kiva had some explaining to do recently after a blogger raised questions about how funds are disbursed by the microfinance organizations with whom Kiva partners. Details are in the "About" section on the Kiva Web site. Click on "Kiva Blog."
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Shop for art and handicrafts at stores dedicated to supporting fair wages and working conditions for artisans in poor countries. The owners of these "fair trade" shops are usually well-traveled with firsthand knowledge of the country and crafts people.

The possibilities are more than I have room to list, so please add your own suggestions in the "comments" section online at the end of this column.

Among my favorite holiday-shopping stops is Ten Thousand Villages, 6417 Roosevelt Way N.E., Seattle, where Mennonite Church volunteers run a store stocked with the work of artisan groups in 38 countries.

How to give back as well as give

If you can't think of anything to give your loved ones for Christmas this year, think about buying them gifts that give back.

Buying fair trade products or making a donation in honor of a loved one are great ways to not only give to your loved ones but to also give something that helps humanity.

We received some ideas on how to do this from an article that we found at The Sarnia Observer. News Canada writer Abigail Guevra gives us three ideas. Some have Canandian ties, but you can easily do something similar in any country.

Buy Fair Trade Certified gifts like chocolate, teas, and coffees that ensure all Fair Trade Certified products are produced without child labour.

* Give a gift to a child-in-need in honour of your loved one by visiting websites like www.ccfcanada.ca.Their heart will be moved when they receive a Christmas card from Christian Children's Fund of Canada (CCFC), a child-centered international development organization, with your special message letting them know that a child living in extreme poverty has received a life-changing gift like school supplies in their name.

* Offer your time as a gift. With personal time becoming scarce, giving the gift of time is valuable. Have fun designing "time coupons" and relieve parents of young children with a couple of hours of babysitting or give the coupons to your children for special one-on- one time with them, where they get to choose something they'd like to do. This becomes a special treat in place of a predictable stocking stuffer.

Holiday gifts to help Anti-poverty efforts

A few stories that we come across in the last few days suggest websites to buy gifts that help others.

We've become convinced that holiday gifts should have a heart of service to them. We should give gifts not so the person can have more "stuff" but a gift that will help that person or will help other people. This buying stuff just so we can have more is not what the Christmas season should be about. This desire for more worldly possessions helped to cause the trampling, shootings and such that occurred on Black Friday.

So then what to get? Here are some ideas from this Associated Press article that we found in the Star News Online.

The gift of a goat ($120, or share a goat for $10, Heifer International) is one way this charitable organization promotes its mission of helping families worldwide struggle out of poverty and become self-sufficient. A financial contribution enables Heifer to provide animals and training to people in places such as Zambia, Albania, China and Peru.

www.Heifer.org

The Three Soup Gourmet Food Bundle ($18.75, Women's Bean Project) is one of the many food items sold online by this Denver nonprofit that tries to break the cycle of poverty by employing women in its gourmet foods business.

www.womensbeanproject.com

The Freedom Trees Jute Tote ($22, WorldofGood.com and other online retailers) helps the women in North Calcutta, India, who make the bags to help make a living. Sold by Karma Market Boutique on this new eBay online marketplace, each eco-friendly bag comes with a tag that explains its story.

http://worldofgood.com

The Side-Zip Mat Bag ($38, One Mango Tree) is made by seamstresses in Northern Uganda. The small, fair-trade business launched by an American woman and a Ugandan seamstress has expanded to include 27 tailors in just one year. One Mango Tree sells purses, neckties and kitchen items to help people in conflict-torn regions out of poverty.

http://onemangotree.com

The Bicycle Chain Menorah ($24, Ten Thousand Villages) gives an eco-twist to Hanukkah. Artists in India fashion these menorahs out of recycled bicycle parts for this free-trade retailer.

www.tenthousandvillages.com

The Morning Call reprinted this Consumer Reports article that gives us some more ideas.

Originalgood.com supports artisans around the world by selling a big selection of notebooks, jewelry, housewares and other goodies.

Theochocolate.com buys its cacao direct from farmers and grower cooperatives. Their gift boxes carry the Fair-Trade Certified label and Consumer Reports' taste testers gave them the thumbs up.

Tenthousandvillages.com is a nonprofit fair-trade group that markets gifts and home-decor products made by artisans in 36 countries.

Spiralfoundation.org sells home-decor items made from reclaimed or recycled materials, and donates all proceeds to humanitarian programs.

Networkforgood.org/goodcard offers several donation amounts ($10, $25, $50 or $100) and the recipient donates the money to the charity of their choice, selecting from more than 1.5 million organizations.

Kiva.org helps entrepreneurs in developing countries work themselves out of poverty. Certificates start at $25.

Changingthepresent.org allows gift givers to contribute to a cause close to someone's heart and create a personalized greeting card to tell them about the donation made in someone's name. There are hundreds of nonprofits from which to choose.

Any others that you would like to suggest?