Connecting people in a worldof need

Kitchen Crafts from Egypt

For decades, refugees from around northern Africa have fled to Egypt to escape horrors like persecution, rape and genocide, yet they find that life in their new home is still a struggle. Finding safe, fair employment can be almost impossible.

For Sudanese refugees, the situation is particularly dire. 75% of the Sudanese refugee community in Cairo is trying to survive on less than $1 a day. Finding a proper job, with fair conditions and a decent wage, is almost impossible.

Tukul-teatowel Almost 30 years ago, a small group of displaced Sudanese people in Cairo were battling this same problem, so they started a little workshop to make some means of living.

They began with beadwork and printing t-shirts with simple stencils. After a while, they introduced basket weaving. They named the project “Tukul”, which means “small hut”.

Today an established social enterprise, Tukul produces and exports a large range of beautiful, vibrant products that reflect the style of the refugees’ home nations. Global Handicrafts sells several of the Tukul range, including their gorgeous tea towels, perfect for your Fair Trade kitchen!

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The chocolate that built a school

West Africa is a hot-spot for chocolate slavery. Children as young as 8 can be found putting in back-breaking days wielding sharp machetes or handling hazardous pesticides. Few children on chocolate farms attend school.

Where Divine’s cocoa is grown, things are different. The women who work with their supplier in Ghana, cocoa cooperative Kuapa Kokoo, care as much about investing their communities as they do about the cocoa they produce. The extra income generated by fair trade operations benefits not just the farmers, but the area’s children, like Jennifer (below).

When Jennifer was younger, she had to make a difficult choice: to live with her family or to go to school. Even though the closest school was 2 hours away, education was important to Jennifer and her family, so she left home and attended school far away, knowing it was the only way to reach her dream of becoming a nurse.

Today, though, Jennifer no longer has to make that choice. Her area is home to Divine chocolate’s cocoa supplier Kuapa Kokoo. With fair trade premiums invested by the women of Kuapa, new schools have now been built in Jennifer’s village. She can live with her family again, as well as get the education she needs to become a nurse and care for people in her community.

Global Handicrafts sells a wide range of Divine’s chocolates, including our larger 100g blocks and powdered drinking chocolate, as well as the snack-sized 50g bars available in-store!

* Story and photos courtesy of Divine chocolate.

Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

Living beside an active volcano is not for the faint of heart. It's true that there are many advantages, if little...

The Power of a Pen

For those used to well equipped schools, it is hard to picture life in parts of rural Gambia where students sit quietly, waiting their turn to use a pen. The idea of having one each, much less a traditional ‘pencil case’ with a set of pens and pencils, is a world away from these students.

The need is widespread. We have been asked for stationery supplies by almost every one of our partners who work with children. Supplies have been running low, though. So, when Hong Kong stationery manufacturer Cartorama offered a large quantity of school stationery, we leaped at the chance. The donation itself left us flabbergasted: 12 pallet loads of cartons containing felt tip pens, piles of school notepads, beautiful new backpacks, erasers, folders and more.

We shipped these to Gambia, hopefully making a huge impact on those little who had previously shared a single pen. We had enough, too, to send to children in Uganda, orphans in Moldova and children here in Hong Kong.

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Donate to a shipment like this one.

Donate Goods!

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Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

Living beside an active volcano is not for the faint of heart. It's true that there are many advantages, if little...

‘Marrying to Survive’ in Uganda

Madina, 17, faced a wretched set of options as a refugee in Uganda. She and her family fled the war in southern Sudan but there was little by way of support for her or the four younger sisters who needed care. Her mother asked her to marry so that the bridal price would help. Madina did not want to marry for that reason alone and sought to alleviate their need with income from occasional work.

As a refugee, though, without much education or training, she couldn’t hope to get a good, steady job.

Crossroads sent a shipment to the town where Madina lives, and she was identified by our local partner to benefit. They gave Madina a ‘start up package’ of things she could use to begin a small clothing business. Now, she owns a mobile business selling clothes door to door.

“You are different”, she told them, with gratitude. “You have made me feel loved in a foreign land. With this new business, I will be able to provide for my mother and pay school fees for my sisters instead of marrying. You are changing our lives.”

Also included in the container was furniture for three schools, along with provision for many of the most impoverished families in the community.

“You have helped put a smile on many of these faces,” the NGO told us. “You have helped restore hope to those that had lost hope.”

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Want to donate goods for a shipment like this one?

Uganda Snapshot

Population: 37.58 million
Capital: Kampala

Uganda is a fertile, land-locked country in East Africa, in the Africa Great Lakes region, with a tropical climate.

Great progress has been made in fighting HIV in Uganda, but 1.5 million people still live with the disease, and there are 1 million children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

39% of girls are married by the age of 18. 37.7% of people in Uganda live below the international poverty line of US$1.25/day.

Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

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‘Honourable’ Work

Life had not done the ‘Honorable’ thing by the young African boy of that very unusual name. Young Honourable was born into a very poor Nigerian family and despite a bright, active mind, he couldn’t afford to go on to college or university.

Crossroads’ West African representative, Bona, saw potential in Honorable. “He’s one of those kids kid that breaks your heart when they can’t get more education,” he said.

Bona, though, was in a position to do something about it. Some years before, he had set up a training centre with computers from Crossroads. Bona enrolled Honourable in the centre and, when Honorable graduated, helped him establish his own ‘Business Centre’, with another Crossroads computer.

The business centre started small, as a place where customers could get basic photocopying and word processing services, but thanks to Honorable’s computer training and a good head for business, it soon began to turn a profit. With it, he invested in 5 more computers and, in turn, set up a computer training centre of his own.

Today, his new centre has trained more than 1,000 young underprivileged youth, many from his own home village. From one donated computer, a tree of opportunity grows, bears fruit and continues to flourish! An ‘Honourable’ outcome indeed!

Give Now!

Donate to a shipment like this one.

Donate Goods!

Want to donate goods for a shipment like this one?

Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

Living beside an active volcano is not for the faint of heart. It's true that there are many advantages, if little...

Upcycling

One of the tenets of our fair trade principles is care for the environment. In our cafe and marketplace, we sell goods that are eco friendly as well as powerful in generating income for people in need.

The creativity of our producers leaves us in awe as they recycle and upcycle.

• In Uganda, for example, victims of the war years were strapped for materials to generate income. They roll, colour and varnish newspaper to produce jewellery so elegant none of our shoppers can guess the source material.

• In Mongolia and Myanmar, artisans upcycle glass shard to produce Christmas ornaments.

• In Cambodia, in the hands of craftsmen, rice sacks turn into funky bags, large and small.

• In India, saries are upcycled to provide decorative features on hessian bags.

• In Vietnam, crisp wrappers turn into tableware

Many of those farmers and suppliers also focus on organic products: tea, coffee, jams, cocoa, chocolates and spices.

Shop Now!

Browse Global Handicrafts’ full online range here or visit our shop at Crossroads Village to walk through our colourful global marketplace, with even more handmade delights from around the world, all of which care for the people who made them.

Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

Living beside an active volcano is not for the faint of heart. It's true that there are many advantages, if little...

Refugee All Stars

The Refugee All Stars, recorded by record label Epitaph Europe B.V., began with a group of six musicians who lived in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, during the era of the country’s horrifying civil war. In a rebel campaign named ‘Operation Kill Every Living Thing’, soldiers descended on Freetown and caused a panicked mass exodus, with thousands of civilians fleeing the region, and ending up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. It was in one of these camps that the six musicians found each other and began singing songs of hope, pain and freedom for their fellow refugees. Today the group has returned to Freetown, recorded CDs, been the subject of an internationally-acclaimed documentary, and joined hands with many other musicians, still advocating for refugee issues through their uplifting, buoyant songs that speak the African refugee story.

Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

Living beside an active volcano is not for the faint of heart. It's true that there are many advantages, if little...

No Child Soldiers

Imagine being a nine-year-old in a small African village where you find life is simple but satisfying. Then one night, rebel soldiers burst into your home with a roar of gunfire, killing your mother then ripping you off your mat while you scream. Later, the soldiers threaten your life, forcing you to kidnap other children and kill adults. The subsequent daily horrors are unimaginable, and even after you make a daring escape to a relief camp, you find it difficult to shake the nightmares and terrors you experienced. But there are those willing to help you. No Child Soldiers brings together many talented African artists who share about the heart-breaking issue of children being used as soldiers. Your purchase will allow projects within African countries to continue their work aiding former child soldiers and preventing other children from being abducted.

Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

Living beside an active volcano is not for the faint of heart. It's true that there are many advantages, if little...

JRS Mikono

Mikono Refugee Crafts is based in Kenya.

All Mikono handicrafts are made by refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Uganda and Mozambique. Most of these refugees are slum dwellers with the desire and the need to earn a living. Their status does not allow them to find jobs easily but through Mikono they are given the opportunity to use the skills acquired from their home country to make handicrafts that are sold to help support them and their families. Thank you for changing the lives of African refugees through your purchase of a Mikono product!

Shop Now!

Browse Global Handicrafts’ full online range here or visit our shop at Crossroads Village to walk through our colourful global marketplace, with even more handmade delights from around the world, all of which care for the people who made them.

Cambodia: Bullet shells to Peace Doves

Decades ago, bombshells ripped through Cambodia, scarring the land and its people. Young Heang was a little toddler when his family...

Ukraine: losing everything

“Everything broke in my head, soul and body. You are alive but you don’t feel alive.” A Ukrainian military leader spoke...

Hong Kong: Once in a Century Storm

The furious downpour was the longest recorded in Hong Kong's history, leading to severe flooding and massive damage. Affected families were...

The Philippines: Under the Shadow of a Volcano

Living beside an active volcano is not for the faint of heart. It's true that there are many advantages, if little...

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