It’s been a great year for Spendyourself, and without all of you, this would still be nothing more than a dream.
As our way to give you all a big THANK YOU for all of your support over the last year, we’ve decided to give two people free shirts for a year!
What exactly does this mean? For each new shirt project we create over the next year, Spendyourself will be shipping you your very own shirt, and it’s all free.
In conjunction with the Resc/You project, we’ve come up with several different ways for you to enter the contest and raise awareness for human trafficking at the same time. Do as many of the following as you like and you’ll get an entry for each one!
The contest ends November 30th… so start spreading the word!
Ways to enter:
1 . Leave a comment on our blog on human trafficking (facts, useful links, etc.)
2. Retweet the following message: Win free clothes for a year! http://tiny.cc/d8m6V @spendyourself
3. Send us a picture of you wearing any Spendyourself shirt: jessica@spendyourself.net
4. Buy any Spendyourself shirt (counts as two entries)
5. Put a link to spendyourself.net on your blog and email us to let us know
6. Visit us at the GMHC, 11/12 – 11/14
7.Tell someone the story behind your Spendyourself shirt and email us
8. Make this your profile picture for a day or more, and post it on the Spendyourself Facebook page
9. Perform any random act of kindness, just let us know!
Questions? lee@spendyourself.net
Proceeds from the sale of the Omed (hope) shirt will go directly to fund completion of the boys and girls school at the Barek Aub refugee camp in Afghanistan.
Barek Aub camp is an IDP (internal refugee camp) about 25 miles outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. The people of Barek Aub are not foreigners, but rather refugees within their own country. Having fled Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, they returned after the fall to find their homes, schools, and businesses bombed out and uninhabitable. Farmlands that were used for grazing were now littered with land mines.
Like most Afghans faced with this situation, they traveled to Kabul in search of a new beginning. As a result of this migration, it’s estimated that Kabul’s infrastructure has ten times the load on it that it is capable of supporting. In an attempt to ease the burden on the city, many people have been forced to relocate outside of Kabul. In the Spring of 2007, this group was relocated from a bombed out building in Kabul to what they now call Barek Aub. The camp’s name, Barek Aub, means ‘fragile water’ in the native language of Dari. In the beginning, they were armed with a plastic pup tent and a small parcel of land. Unfortunately, the remote location rendered it impossible to have an income source. Water was delivered to the site, but half of it was undrinkable, which created a multitude of health concerns. Overnight, these actions created a level of poverty that would compete with any situation across the world.
These conditions compelled Sozo International to partner with these refugees since the first time they crossed paths. Sozo’s approach has always been to partner with the people it intends to serve and build meaningful relationships. As a result, these relationships empower the people it hopes to serve rather than generating a sense of dependency. Over the last 2 years, what was once a dire situation on the cusp of survival is starting to see some hope. Deep water wells that provide clean water have been dug, food is being provided on a regular basis, and permanent shelter continues to be built. With that said, there is still much work to be done to move from a state of survival to a state of sustainable progress. The massive inflation that has rocked the Afghan economy reminds us of the stark reality that the average person still only gets one full meal every two days.
The people of Barek Aub are a resilient group, and when the question was posed to the elders of what they would like to see in Barek Aub, the answer was an easy one – ‘a school’. A school for both boys and girls is seen as a luxury to the generations before them that did not have the opportunity, and a key to the future stability of their nation. By equipping this generation with the tools that they need, we aim to restore hope and a sustainable future to the people of Barek Aub.
To see more pictures involving Sozo International and those they serve, please click here.
We’d like to give everyone a look at our first shirt series as well as our logo tees.
This first series, entitled ‘Omed’, will be used to raise funds to complete a school for refugees living outside of Kabul, Afghanistan.
More to come soon, but we would love to hear your input.
We are so glad you’ve found your way over to the official Spendyourself blog.
We are an apparel company with a heart for social justice and a vision to drive positive change in the world, but we can’t do it without you. We are inviting you along on this journey to spend yourself.
The vision of this movement is two-fold. First off, we want to give a voice to the voiceless and oppressed all across the globe. In addition to this, the proceeds will go directly to fund specific projects that fight these injustices in a sustainable fashion. We depend on people just like yourselves to tell these stories the clothing embodies to drive change in a way that we might otherwise not be able to.
We also want to give all of you a voice from the very beginning. If you have a certain cause that you are passionate about, we would love to hear about it. In addition to this, we are always looking for graphic designers that have a heart for impacting the world in a positive way with their gifts.
Over the next several weeks we will be launching both the first series of t-shirts and the official Spendyourself website! Be watching for these and we hope you’ll invite your friends to jump on board this project and begin to spend themselves on behalf of the poor and oppressed.
-The Spendyourself Team
p.s. And because every post is better with a picture, here is a little teaser picture of what the first round of t-shirts are going to support. Stay tuned for the full story!
Buy a shirt to support Earthquake relief in Haiti. Read More
Proceeds from the Resc\You shirt will go directly toward funding a scholarship fund for the children of sex workers. “Trafficking is essentially modern day slavery, and currently there are 27 million people in slavery.” Read more on Resc\You… Read More
Scarlet Hope works with women and men in the sex industry. Read More
Did you know: The San Francisco earthquake of 1989 was at the same time of day as the Haiti quake, and was of the same magnitude. Over 200,000 Haitians died. EIGHTY NINE San Franciscans died. How could that be? Read more on Did You Know?… Read More
Our New Club! Walking into an unfamiliar place. Not knowing what to expect we anxiously awaited to see what the owners would say. God has been preparing the hearts of our team for quite some time to step out and take on another club or two. The only way to be able to start serving in a new club is to GO into the club and ask. Read more on Scarlet Hope Journal Entry 2/27/2010… Read More
The story behind our Espere shirt. Two members of Spendyourself were able to travel with Northside Christian Church and film this video as part of their Advent Conspiracy event in December. We thought it certainly helped tell the story as to why we feel so strongly about this project. To read more about the story behind this shirt, please click here. Read more on Haiti Clean Water Video… Read More