3things is a movement for global goodness. We believe if each of us take small positive steps, together we can make some big changes.
So whether you've got 3 minutes, 3 weeks or more, you can do 3things to change the world...
An initiative of Oxfam Australia.
After a trip to Vietnam, guest blogger Louise Kate Anderson wondered about the do's and don'ts of ethical tourism. Should you buy that extremely cheap bracelet from the local woman with a baby on her back, or are you doing her community more harm than good?
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Australia is one of the richest countries in the world, but the new federal budget has revealed the government plans to continue diverting funds from overseas aid programs to pay for domestic asylum seeker processing. Where does our money go? And why are we using "foreign aid" to lock people up?
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If you want to ensure that you’re avoiding buying clothes made with sweatshop labour, a number of Australian companies are accredited with Ethical Clothing Australia and with Fairtrade. You can find lists of brands on their websites. But if you can’t find what you’re looking for, or what you need for work, then what?
Second hand, or op shopping, has long been a go-to option for thrifty and ethical shopping. You’re guaranteed a bargain at your local Vinnies, Salvos or Red Cross shop, or pay a little bit more for a real gem at one of many vintage stores, where you’re effectively paying for someone else to do the treasure hunting for you. This week, however, I decided to have a crack at second hand shopping online, on old faithful Gumtree.
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Shebeen is a non-profit bar that sells beers from around the world and gives 100% of profits back to your drink's country of origin. Who Gives A Crap is a brand of toilet paper that helps provide people in developing countries with toilets and better sanitation. Simon Griffiths is the brains behind both these amazing ventures!
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$2 does not buy much. At all. But that’s what I, along with thousands of other Australians, have been living off this last week as part of the Live Below The Line challenge.
The challenge is to eat on $2 per day for 5 days, the equivalent of the extreme poverty line. An initiative of the Oaktree Foundation, the money raised goes to various education and skills programs in Cambodia and Papua New Guinea to help break the cycle of poverty.
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The coffee ritual in the West is ubiquitous which makes it terribly easy to forget where those beans came from. Unfortunately we live in such an upside-down world where many of the world’s hungry are the ones keeping our coffee addiction alive and starving for it. We know we live in a nutty world where everyday life poses enough challenges to keep us busy for a lifetime but that shouldn’t stop us from being mindful of the world’s poor and creating a better food system for everyone by supporting small-scale farmers. It’s not just your coffee cup; it’s 2.25 billion cups each year and the earth doesn’t seem pleased either.
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You may have read news articles about the recent factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in which hundreds of garment workers died. It is important to ask: if consumers didn’t demand so much cheap clothing, would factory workers be working in such poor conditions?
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Why is it important to support small-scale farmers? The short answer is because if we don’t, we perpetuate the unequal distribution of resources and the existence of global inequality. Sounds like heavy stuff? It is, but it’s also important to be aware of the global food production system.
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Here’s a paradox for you: 870 million or 1 in 8 people are going hungry on our planet. But in the past decade, Oxfam research suggests global land deals have covered enough land to feed one billion people.
So if there is – theoretically – enough land to feed the world’s hungry, where are we going wrong?
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Wow. We asked you – Coldplay fans, Oxfam supporters and creative geniuses – to send us photos and videos of ordinary things out of place, and you responded in thousands. You sent 7,000 pics and films, from 55 countries, in five continents! (What, no Coldplay fans in Antarctica?)
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The content on this site is produced by volunteers of Oxfam Australia's 3things movement and the general public. As such Oxfam Australia does not necessarily endorse the views expressed on this site.
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