It's been REALLY HARD having to sell online to make a living during Covid, and because of that mandated shift for my Thai natural products business, I've been more aware than ever of all the ABSOLUTE CRAP being pedaled 'out there' and just how little of it actually is necessary, quality, sustainable or fair trade.
Plastic, trinkets, fast fashion, chemicals, more plastic and more garbage than I care to even name.
Despite needing to ramp up our income, I decided to try and create awareness online this year, and to lift my vibration away from desperation to a place where I have more than enough, and indeed, have enough to share.
And so my Thai business, Pure Thai Natural Co Ltd is in the middle of a public sustainability event, Be The Change Black Friday.
My event-explainer runs like this:
We are asking you to Be The Change this Black Friday. In an instagrammable world of fast fashion, consumerism, trinkets, buy-buy-buy, online 'bargains' and endless want, we're asking you to PAUSE and consider real NEED.
The displaced Karen refugee community around the Parahita Htoo Learning Center in the Propha area on the way to Umphang in far western Thailand is asking for help. As the cold season sets in and overnight mountain temperatures often come close to zero centigrade, they need warm clothes, food security support, mosquito nets, basic bedding and household items and learning materials for their children.
Would you please consider NOT buying "stuff" you don't really need and helping this Karen community along the Burmese border instead? We're asking you to consider emptying your closet instead of filling it, to donate goods if you're in Chiang Mai instead of acquiring more, or to simply send a cash donation to the school community if you're not in town.
Covid has hit this ethnic Karen community particularly hard and they need our help. A more sustainable world begins with global community and the more equitable distribution of food, clothes, education and opportunity. Please join us and Be The Change.
Details of how to contribute are posted in the event discussion. Please share, share, share and contribute.
With gratitude.
I want to say my idea has been wholeheartedly embraced. But alas, some of my drop-shipping-digital-nomad friends took a very large side-step and viewed this idea as a threat to their big cash cow.
Nevertheless, the FEW who "get" this idea of a minimal existence creating space for new income and opportunity have been astoundingly generous. The contributions from just yesterday alone were wonderful.
Bags of warm clothes and bedding, school supplies and toiletries and basic food items. More came in today, and tomorrow I'm picking up a small truckload of clothes and a bicycle!!
Sometimes, if I look too widely at the bigger picture, I get profoundly discouraged. But if I look small - at the one child or one village or the 10 awake-enough people willing to help, I am over-whelmed with hope and gratitude and optimism.
We DO get to choose what kind of a world we create, every time we spend our $$$, or choose to re-use and recycle and support someone else instead.
Grateful for the generosity of spirit that remains in small pockets and for our loyal customers who buy what they need from us and continue to believe in a world where fair trade, sustainable and organic MATTER and where doing good for the greater good brings an energy which enables a wealth and contentment of spirit that is far beyond what we buy or what we own.
BlissednBlessed.
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