Recycled Fashion Firsts

Protagonists in  Gone With the Wind, Sound of Music, and Enchanted all knew how to conserve the world's resources by converting draperies into dresses. Ecouterre.com has identified seven of 2014's top designers who have done something similar to these heroines. Their creative ideas are:

• Pleather, leather-looking jewelry and clothes made from inner tubes
• Jewelry made from the fence that imprisoned Nelson Mandela in South Africa
• Jewelry made from Detroit's peeling graffiti
• Leather waste woven into laptop and tablet sleeves
• Denim woven into seats for camper chairs
• Pine needles from discarded Christmas trees made into French designer lingerie
• Rubbish from the United Kingdom made into sneakers. 

All items are on display and described at the ecouterre.com website.

     Just as leather and denim were cut into strips and woven into new products, cut old ties from thrift shops or dad's closet into strips and weave them into squares, sew two together, leave one side open to stuff, sew up that side, and make a pillow. Or make a cat toy by filling a smaller pillow with crunchy wax  paper or aluminum foil. Look around the house to see if you can find a moth damaged sweater you can unravel to make a ball of yarn that an adult can show you how to knit into a dog sweater or a skirt for a Barbie doll.

     See earlier blog posts, "Good Works Multiply Fast" and "I Made This Myself" for other recycling ideas that will conserve the world's resources.

Chocolate's Sweet Deals

In addition to giving boxes of chocolates as gifts this holiday season, consider giving stocks in cocoa processing plants. But keep an eye on the competition, since the growing demand for chocolate among billions of people in emerging markets, which is expected to increase cocoa processing by 15% in the next ten years, can raise prices on the supply of cocoa beans which has suffered from drought conditions, and it will put a squeeze on profits.

     As an example of increased competition, check out how Olam International, headquartered in Singapore, has just become a major competitor with Barry Callebaut AG and Cargill Inc. In addition to shelling out $176 million to a U.S. peanut processor, Olam, which recently purchased the cocoa unit of Archer-Daniels-Midland for $1.3 billion, now has eight cocoa processing plants, including one in the Ivory Coast. The U.S. recently acted to block imports of the UK's Cadbury chocolate which has a higher fat content and creamier taste than Hershey's chocolate. Hershey claimed Cadbury's product names and packaging infringed on their trademark rights and licensing agreements.

     Based on projections of a growing demand for chocolate in emerging markets, there is an opportunity for cocoa bean growers in developing countries, by themselves or in conjunction with major processors, to set up their own plants to satisfy local demand. Further, since chocolate can melt when transported in warm weather, local producers have a major incentive to supply emerging markets with locally-produced chocolate products.

     The Kuapa Kokoo Cocoa Cooperative in Ghana, Africa, is already a working model of how cocoa growers can benefit by developing a relationship with processors and distributors. Before selling to the cooperative, growers were at the mercy of a state cocoa buying company that did not always pay on time and sometimes cheated when weighing their cocoa beans. Now, the cooperative, working with Divine Chocolate and the fair trade company, SERRV, (serrv.org/divine), participates in the profits generated from the production and marketing of a wide variety of gourmet chocolate bars, chocolate mint thins, Kosher certified milk and dark chocolate coins, and a day-by-day, chocolate heart-filled Advent calendar.

     For other ideas of how to make a profit in Africa, see the earlier blog posts, "Never Too Young to Invest in the Future" and "Discover Africa."

 

Changes to US-Cuban Relationships

In June, 2017, Raul Castro announced his intention to step down and President Trump announced new US regulations will change travel and business contacts that applied in President Obama's administration.

     In my earlier blog post, "Hope for the Future," I wrote that some day we would rejoice when a U.S. AID worker held captive in Cuba would be released. Alan Gross is now a free man after five years in a small room with two other prisoners.

      Calling Pope Francis the "real deal" and a source of inspiration, President Obama acknowledged the pontiff's role in restoration of normal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. The countries reopened their embassies in Washington, DC and in Havana on July 20, 2015. Two months later, Pope Francis visited Cuba before he came to the USA. During President Obama's 2-day visit to Cuba in March, 2016, he met Cuban President Raul Castro and anti-Castro activists and attended a baseball game. On November 25, 2016, Cuba announced the death of Fidel Castro, who had led Cuba from 1956 to 2006, which included the Cuban missile crisis during the administration of John Kennedy.

      The US has not appointed an ambassador to Havana, but Jose Cabanas has been appointed Cuba's ambassador to the US.

     Until President Trump's new regulations take effect, individual US travelers to Cuba can still go to the Airbnb website, airbnb.com, to book bed and breakfast accommodations and facilitate cash payments and MasterCard and American Express credit card charges. Airbnb has one million listings of unique accommodations in 190 countries.

   

Introduce Disadvantaged Kids to the World

When Leigh Vierstra, a social studies teacher from Wisconsin. traveled to Kenya, she did more than climb Mount Kilimanjaro. She learned about Pa-Moja, Swahili for "together," and came back to introduce the economically disadvantaged students she teaches to the Canadian not-for-profit organization that connects 33 African schools with schools in North America. Through Pa-Moja exchanges, her students began to look beyond their troubled home lives, gain confidence and motivation, learn about the world, and realize that they weren't the only youngsters struggling to make a new life for themselves.

     The benefits of introducing disadvantaged kids to Pa-Moja seem to be in line with studies that show the same placebo effect that causes belief that medicine can cure to cure can have an impact in the classroom. When students were told that they could improve their IQs, their brain functions responded by improving their IQs, just like bodies respond to sugar pills. Positive beliefs, genuine acceptance, and nonjudgmental coaching produce resiliency in students marked by balance, persistence, and awareness. Find out more at Thom Markhan's website, thommarkham.com.

       Pa-Moja (pamojaeducation.com) fosters this kind of resiliency through the Internet, YouTube, and Skype. Besides an intercultural exchange of educational development and concern for wildlife conservation, Pa-Moja also facilitates an exchange of music, dance, poetry, art, recipes, and life styles. Interestingly, Pa-Moja even provides students with the online option of working toward the prestigious International Baccalaureate (IB) high school degree mentioned in the earlier blog post, "See the World."

    Another organization that connects U.S. classrooms with students thousands of miles away is ePals.com, which was described in the earlier blog post, "Getting to Know You."

                                                                                                                  

                                                                                         

Hong Kong Update

 In January, 2016, protesters again took to Hong Kong's streets, when booksellers and publishers of books that often feature sex stories of Communist Party leaders disappeared. Under the Basic Law that has governed Hong Kong ever since the UK returned the island to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kong has enjoyed freedoms of speech not granted on the Chinese mainland. The Basic Law governing Hong Kong as one of China's special administrative regions also barred Chinese legal authorities from exercising jurisdiction over Hong Kong's courts, a power that Chinese political pressure seems slowly to be undermining.

     Ten weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations ended in Hong Kong on December 11, 2014, when police cleared the streets and arrested activists in what came to be called the Umbrella Movement. Initially, young activist leaders, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, were sentenced to community service. On August 17, 2017, an appeals court changed what was considered too light a sentence to up to eight-month prison terms that also bars them from running for office for five years. They were released on bail in October, 2017.
 
      As this 2005 photo shows, democracy protests in Hong Kong are not new, but there's been a
shift from violent confrontations with the police. Proponents of non-violent civil disobedience began calling for a new strategy to maintain the democratic measures they expected in 1997.

     Under the terms of the UK's accord with China, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong was to be elected by universal suffrage. John Tsang was the popular choice for Chief Executive in Hong Kong's April, 2017 election, but the electoral college chose Carrie Lam in order to accommodate China, which had announced it would select acceptable candidates to run in the 2017 election.

     During the peaceful 2014 protest demonstration, Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen was among the Occupy Central non-violence supporters who tried to turn themselves into Hong Kong's Central Police Station on December 3, 2014. They were neither charged nor arrested for an illegal protest. The police told them their protest was illegal and asked them to fill out forms providing personal information. The police did not want the Central Station to attract more protesters who wanted to be arrested and, therefore, to become another center for occupation.

      Given heavy censorship and spin on the news, Beijing controls how Hong Kong's protests are portrayed as illegal and influenced by foreigners. It has been said that the mainland Chinese are not sympathetic with Hong Kong protests, because they feel people in Hong Kong already enjoy more freedoms than they do. (For additional information about current affairs in China and Hong Kong, see the earlier blog post, "Let's Visit China.")