My Story

I am on a journey. ‘Shop to Change the World’ is part of that journey. I didn't expect it to be! My background is nursing sick children. In a way I thought that working in that environment was the only means by which I could make a difference. My circumstances changed and I was forced to re-assess my work-life balance and decided to become a 'Traidcraft' fair trader. That was the beginning of a revelation.

I’ve come to realise that I seem to have been lulled into the expectation and acceptance of products produced using cheap and even child labour by powerful companies making huge profits at the expense of those impoverished producers. I realised that in many ways I’m passionate about justice, but that didn’t seem to affect what I bought. I needed more information and to be empowered I needed choice.

I've travelled to India several times, and also to Mexico, and the memories of those visits and the people I met, the producers of goods we buy without a second thought have inspired me to explore the whole area of fair and ethical trade.

As I explore I hope to share information that hopefully will help you make informed choices as you shop.

So… ‘Shop to Change the World’ was born! My aim, in this busy society in which we live, is to provide accessible information about the source of the everyday products we buy, and to provide a way to make our choice to buy alternatives simpler and easier.