Merry Christmas from some very special children!

Love146 operates shelters to protect children vulnerable to trafficking and survivors who have been rescued from slavery.
These children have had a tough start in life, but they love music just as much as any children.
And they can play the beloved Christmas song 'Jingle bells' perfectly.

I wish you all a merry, ethical Christmas,

Photo credit; Ian Muttoo

There's so much to think about at Christmas. "Is this the right gift?" "Am I getting good value for money?" "Should I choose the blue one or the red one?" "What the heck do I get my co-worker?"

I had some other questions on top of those. "Who made this?" "How were they treated?" "Were they a slave?" 

That sounds drastic, but in today's world, it isn't. There are more slaves today than ever before. And I hate to say it, but our need for cheap, junky nick-nacks to give our co-workers is fueling this problem.

And, I hate to say this more, but I can't even tell you how to choose things that weren't made by slaves. It would take months of research, resources and information I don't have access to, I'd have to give you specific brand names, and then I still couldn't be one hundred percent certain. 

But, what I can give you is a list of questions to ask to help you decide if the gift you're looking at is worth buying, plus a few suggestions.

1. Where was this made, and what is the state of human trafficking in that country?

The country of manufacture that's stamped on the back of the box doesn't tell you everything. There've been instances of factories in the United States enslaving workers. The only thing is that if it's made in a country with widespread slave labour, or widespread slave labour, you can put it down, and try to find an alternative. But how do you know if there's widespread slave labour in Moldova? You pull out your smart phone and google it. "Labour trafficking in Moldova" I favour gifts that were made locally. I love buying things off the person who made them. They're not always as expensive as we think, and much more special. However, quite often, buying things from other countries can have a really positive effect on their economy, which can help them grow out of economic problems. This is more effective, however, with fairtrade products, or those produced by a company based in that country. 

2. What was this made with, and where did that come from?

While I was buying jewelry for my sister this year, I asked where it was made. One seller said it was made in Latvia. "Okay," I thought, but then I wondered where the silver was mined. This is quite often impossible to tell, but it's important because in many areas, children drop out of school to mine, and mining often involves climbing down unstable holes, and working with tough chemicals like mercury. If you can find out, and the metal was mined in a place like Australia, it's probably not mined with slave labour. Please stay away from African gold. When you've seen pictures of children playing in mercury, you won't want any. Another option is fair trade and cetified metals, but since at the moment, they're rather expensive and tend to come with really nice jewelry, not the mid range jewelry I'm giving my sister. I didn't find out where the metal in her earings did come from, I resorted to the third question.

3. At this price, am I giving the economy room to grow?

Sometimes even brands that sell pricey clothing have some trafficking problems in their supply chains. It can be disappointing to find out that my label jacket was made in the same place as that cheap one. But what I ask when I feel I don't have better options is, if I'm spending this amount, am I feeding the demand for cheap things, which feeds the demand for unpaid labour? Am I giving the companies excuses to say "People don't want to spend more than $2.50 on a towel." We have to use slave labour to stay afloat."? I'm not suggesting we pay an unreasonable amount of money, I'm saying we think about what is the reasonable amount of money this should be worth relative to how long it could have taken to make, and what it's made out of.

4. Have I let the manufacturer know that I care about ethics?

Every company should be working toward eradicating the use of slave labour anywhere in their supply chain. Sometimes, when we can't find an alternative, then writing to a company and saying that you care about ethics can help. Something along the lines of; "I am a customer, in fact, I bought a soft toy from you, and I hope you are actively working to stop the use of slavery in your supply chain." The person reading your letter or email may or may not know what your talking about. You can give them a link to Made in a Free World, which has software made for busiesses to help them combat the issue. You can also send them to Stop the Traffik for information, and can use Stop The Traffik's website to send emails to many companies. 

Some tips
For those of you who now aren't sure what to get your co-workers since you put down that snowglobe, here are my tips. 

1. Make it yourself. 

If you want an inexpensive gift that's also special, making it yourself is a great option.
Some good gifts to make are

• Fudge, chocolates, or other sweets, -Use organic sugar and ethical chocolate
• A home made Christmas ornament,
• An iced fruit cake, -try to trace which country the fruit was grown in or buy fair trade dried fruit if possible.
• re-pot some seedlings as a gift. -buy several flower seedlings, and place them in second hand pots. Children can help decorate old pots or if you're arty, you could turn them into something really special.
• Build a candy despensor and put fairly traded sweets in it instead of the m&ms in these instructions. (Video also shows how to make some other chocolate gifts. Candy despensor is at the 10 minute mark.)
• knit or sew a clothing item using recycled wool or wool that's made in your country.

2. Fairly traded. 
Several kinds of certification exist, fair trade, ethical choice, ect. These items are not garenteed to be trafficking free, but are usually a better choice than other ones.

Where I live, In New Zealand, there is a brilliant shop chain called Trade Aid. I love to buy gift cards from here and send people in to see what a cool collection of stuff they have. Everything is certified fairtrade, and food products are organic.

3. Vintage.
I actually quite often buy second hand items that are still good to give as gifts. Thrift shops often have jewelry, soft toys, old style plates and cupboard items, and the money usually goes to charity rather than to companies that source items from sweatshops or slave labour using sources.

4. Give to charity.
I feel like this is the ultimate gift for co-workers. In case you're unfamiliar with the concept, some charities sell cards that represent a donation given on a person's behalf instead of getting a gift from them. We can choose what the money is spent on such as livestock, education, or health, and recieve a card representing what can be done with the amount of money that was gifted. This is the one gift on this page that not only doesn't contribute to slavery, but can actually prevent it!

Santa clause needs your help!

Many children living in poverty don't get Christmas presents or any presents at any time of the year. Where is Santa Clause?

Santa Clause needs your help, there are many ways you can help disadvantaged children get Christmas presents. Getting Christmas presents shows children that even though they are poor, they are valuable; shows them that they deserve better than what they have experienced.

1.  Send a box of Christmas presents with Operation Christmas Child.

The concept is, you pack a cardboard shoebox with gifts and write a special letter or Christmas card. A $9 donation enables OCC to transport the box to one of five different countries to be distributed to a poor child. You can even track your box to see which country it went to and if you put your address in the letter or Christmas card, then who knows, you may just receive a thank you letter back. (: How cool would that be?
Want to do this? Go to;
Australia and New Zealand:
https://www.samaritanspurse.org.au/operation-christmas-child/

United States: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/
United Kingdom: https://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/

2. Compassion Christmas Gift fund:

Compassion sponsored children and children waiting for sponsors get Christmas gifts each year from the Christmas fund. The gift is purchased in the area, improving the local economy, and the children's tutors can choose gifts that will be useful and appreciated by those children. Often these gifts are the only gifts children receive, ever. But not all sponsors give Christmas money, so your donation will be appreciated. If you would like to contribute to this fund, go to:
NZ; http://www.tearfund.org.nz/childgiftfund.html
US; http://www.compassion.com/gift-to-child-in-poverty.htm
(If your country is not listed, but is a Compassion sponsor country, find your country's compassion's website, and locate the correct page, or contact the staff and ask them.)

Day 5

Sorry for the late post, but here's how I finnished off Live Below The Line.

 The night of day four, I made lunch for day five. Given that I had lived out of a bag of rice for five days, it felt weird emptying the bag. "What will I have for dinner!" a voice in my mind asked. I glanced over at the potato. Yes, I did have a potato. I wouldn't need to skip lunch again and save the rice. But that was what my instinct told me to do. It was a weird thought that the daily rice dinner had come to an end. Now that I'm back onto a health diet, I won't be having any rice for quite a while. In the morning, I made my last Daliya out of all the kibbled rye in the bottom of the bag. I saved some onion "In case I need it" even though I knew I wouldn't, (I did add it to the sauce in the end) saved the end of a carrot, to eat with dinner, and some tomatos for a sauce to go with my anticuchos.

 I felt so full after eating all the daliya I'd had left. I barely got hungry by lunch time. It felt almost as though I wasn't on Live Below The Line. For lunch I had a Peruvian style "garlic rice" which wasn't briliant, because I had to use a dribble of vinegar instead of the lemon juice Peruvians use. ...And also because I put too much water in the rice. But nevermind, it was food and I had the privelege of being able to have three meals. Oh, and my last 1/4 of my dal.

 I brought my dinner to work. I had to go to work at a takeaway shop and cook other people's burgers while I was hungry. But, I'd imagine quite a few people in extreme poverty prepare food for richer people. In other countries where restaraunts don't have minimum wages. I know what they would feel like. I took anticuchos on sticks, with potatoes and carrot in a container, and sauce in another. I cooked the anticuchos at work, seeing as beleive it or not, we have facilities to grill food there. It felt appropriate to think this is quite possably what Aldair's family would have as a treat when (if) they have takeaways, but if they could have takeaways, it would definitely be a treat. Hey, perhaps some people from their community are employed cooking it. I enjoyed it. The anticuchos didn't taste quite as good with white vinegar as they had when I made them with sushi vinegar. But that's how you live below the line in New Zealand.

 Before I took my little box of Peruvian takeaways to work, I put the little box that I had kept my Live Below The Line Food in back in the cupboard; completely empty of food. I felt great eating all my food, actually being full for once, and knowing that the next day I would also be full. But, in the back of my mind was the sad realisation that for 1 billion people, the end of living in extreme poverty hasn't come yet. Each day they struggle to have enough. Each day they are careful not to eat all their food even though they are hungry -They don't know if they'll be able to get any more tomorrow. Likewise for victims of human trafficking, they can't see an end. Let's put an end to living below the line. Let's put an end to slavery. ... I know. We might not ever really be able to rid the world of those two ugly things, but we can definitely end it for one person. That's changing a world. Donate now.

Anticuchos (My Live Below The Line version)

100ml white vinegar,
1/4 tsp cumin seeds,
3 cloves garlic (Or less, I had lots of garlic left so I used it)
Fresh Parsely and oregano, (Or dried herbs for about 1.5 cents per 1/2 tsp)
ground pepper,

100g chicken hearts, (Or other heart meat)
3 kebab skewers (From the bottom of my cupboard, not included in my budget but probably worth a couple cents each)

(Do this in the morning if it's for dinner)
Crush garlic, and place the marinade ingredients in a small bowl. Add the chicken hearts. Leave in the fridge. Stir them a bit every now and again (I stirred once before and once after school) to make sure all the hearts get coated in marinade since there won't be enough to cover them.

Just before dinner time, put them on sticks. I used three kebab sticks. Grill for 5-10 minutes ensuring the hearts are heated through but not overcooked.

Serve with potato and a sauce.

Day Four -Almost over

(24th September)
Today, I was running late to school, so I brought my daliya with me in a little plastic container and are it at recess. Having breakfast later didn't make lunch time any easier though. I saw the fruit that New Zealand school children get each day. It's hard not to be able to have any. I set to work making my dinner straight after I got home. I had soaked my beans all day for making Boussan Touba, which my sponsored child, Nouridine might eat. But I had to work out which African sauce recipe to use. I had heard that Burkinabe usually serve meals with a sauce. I found a recipe with meat in it, and just left it out as well as some other ingredients. Here are my recipes followed by the links to the originals.

Bousan Touba with rice and sauce. - Live Below the line version

For the rice:
1/2 cup of rice,
(I just cooked it normally)

For the sauce:
3 tomatos from a tin.
slice of onion,
2 cloves garlic,
1/2 green chilli.
Parsely from our garden.

Chop the veggies, cook the onion and garlic and chilli, then add some water, add the tomato and parsely into that. Once my sauce had cooked a while and everything was mushy, I pure'd it.

For the Bousan Touba (bean cakes)
about 80 grams black eye peas,
One egg,
1/2 a carrot, chopped,
slice of onion,
salt and pepper.
3tsp oil.

Put the bean cake ingredients in a food processor, or in my case a jug with a stick mixer, and pure. This is quite a lot of egg to beans, so in hindsight, I could have scrambled the egg, had some scrambled egg with something else, and used half an egg in the bousan touba. In saying that, mine worked fine. The mixture was runny, but bound well because of the egg.

Spread tablespoons of mixture in the pan with just a little bit of oil. Cook for about a minute and then gently flip, and press down to flatten, and allow the edges to cook more evenly.

Serve Bousan Touba with sauce and rice with the sauce.

Recipes inspired by the more authentic recipes

For Bousan Touba; http://travelbystove.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/recipes-from-burkina-faso.html#.VgZkbPmqpxR

For sauce: http://rw7howto.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/how-to-make-burkina-tomato-sauce.html

Day three- Three meals! Why am I still hungry?

This is day three of Live Below The Line. And today, I managed to have lunch! My stomach is just settling down from the "Tacu tacu" Peruvian rice and bean cakes I had for dinner. How is it that the day when I had three meals is the day I feel more hungry than ever? Before school, My sister and I went on a walk to film the opening, morning scenes of a video we are making which I will post tomorrow. My school was re-opened today. At school, I found it really hard not to have any of the fruit New Zealand school children are having. I found some oranges on the ground. Would it be cheating to have one of those? Our children are obviously unapreciative of their priviledge. Today, my Dad said that he had taken in a lot from what I'm doing. It makes him more aware not to waste food. That's a large part of Live Below The Line. We may be a bunch of whiny, complaining rich people who can barely buy food on what one in seven of the world's population lives on. But we are agents of reality showing our friends and family the state of the world. I myself am now more aware than ever of the way I live.

Meal One;
Daliya, $0.60, see day one. I also had a sardine with it this morning.

Meal two, Left over 1/2 cup of Babenda, one sardine, and 1/2 of the left over dal, leaving one 1/4 portion of dal for another day.

Meal three, Tacu Tacu total cost (aprox) $0.80

This is the sofrito. Sorry, I kinda ate the tacu tacu before I could take a photo.

Roughly 1 cup cooked beans -$0.30
1/2 cooked rice (About a third of a cup raw) - $0.15
One tomato from a tin, -$0.15aprox
Herbs from the garden
-Oregano, parsely, and coriander would be ideal.
I ended up using Thyme, parsely, and basil.
1/4 tsp ground cumin - 1/5 a cent
Little onion,
3 cloves garlic.
1 tsp sweet chilli sauce.

Make a 'sofrito' by cooking onion, 2 cloves garlic, then adding tomato, herbs, and cumin.
I saved two teaspoons for my next Peruvian inspired meal. Then I rolled the beans in the sofrito. I then mashed the beans with a fork, and mixed them into the rice by hand. I shaped it all into one big patte, and then I fried some onion and the other clove of garlic in a teaspoon of oil. I fried the tacu tacu until the rice on the outside was browned, and served it with a tiny teaspoon of chilli sauce. While I was cooking it, it looked white. I expected it to taste bland. But it didn't! it had a wonderful flavour. My only problem is that there was not quite enough of it. I think this is a problem many people in poverty face.

Inspired by this more authentic recipe; http://www.piscotrail.com/2011/04/06/recipes/tacu-tacu-peruvian-refried-beans-and-rice/

Live Below The Line Day two- Dal Curry and a birthday party.

Today, my sister Amber is turning 8!
I've eaten Indian food all day. I had Daliya for breakfast again (see yesterday's post)
and for dinner, Dal -(Split pulse curry) with rice. It was hard going to a kid's party and being so hungry, but not being able to eat anything. It did make me think though, about all the kids who don't get presents or nice food on their birthdays. That sounds pessimistic. Especially those for whom living to such an age is an achievement. It's not that I'm trying to be pessimistic. It's simply a reality that we usually try to ignore in favour of our own problems. I don't know if we can really afford to ignore our children, the next generation of the earth.

Dal with rice -Aprox cost; 

$1.27 - plus an extra portion of dal.

1/2 cup dried rice -$0.20
(For Dal)
1/2 cup lentils or split peas (I used toor dal) -0.30
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/8 tsp fenugreek
1/8 tsp turmeric - $0.02 (For all the spices together)
1/2 stem curry leaf -$0.04
3 tinned tomatoes -$0.45
1/3 onion -$0.13
1 clove garlic $0.10
1 teaspoons oil $0.03
(To garnish)
1/4 carrot chopped, $0.05
1 teaspoon chutney, $0.02
Pinch of salt $0.005 (Yes, I'm using half cents)

Cook the lentils until they are mushy. Toast the cumin and mustard seeds in the oil. Add the onion and cook. When it is translucent, add the tomatoes, garlic, and remaining spices. Pour in the mushy lentils, ideally cook until they are more of a paste than lentils. Then serve with rice. I had chopped carrot, and a teaspoon of chutney.

Inspired by the more authentic recipe at: http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/tomato-dal-andhra-tomato-dal/
You might also like to try this one http://onelifetoeat.com/2010/04/23/masoor-dal/