Hi I'm Alison. I run Shop to Change the World, a fairtrade party and home-shopping experience. Read about changing the world a little at a time in my Blog.

My Latest Blog

Saturday 27th March 2010

Robert Crampton on 'Amazon' buying 20th March 2010 'The Times' 'It's better to help a lot of people make a living than it is to help a few people make a fortune'

I started to think about the impact of trans national companies(TNC's) a while ago but it's hard to change the habits of a lifetime! We've grown up with them as part of the fabric of our society and if you're like me life gets busy and we don't always question what's going on around us.
If you're interested in finding out more, read 'Tescopoly' by Andrew Simms?(ISBN: 978-1-84529-511-0 )(grew up in my hometown incidentally) fascinating, if a tad scary!

If reading that makes you want to change your habits look at www.ethicalconsumer.co.uk at the section on supermarkets. There you will find a link to an 'Ethiscore'. This gives supermarkets a score for a wide range of ethical issues from supply chain, treatment of employees, attitude to testing on animals, corporate responsibility policy etc etc. I had already stopped using several TNC's but I used this scoring to help me decide who to weed out next! It's a process!!

If you'd like to read more on fair trade itself '50 Reasons to Buy Fair Trade' by Miles Litvinoff and John Madeley(ISBN 10-0-7453-2584-X) is a great book to start with.

Be inspired!! Blessings Alison

10th March 2010

My first blog! STCTW has been going 2 months now and the last two weeks have been amazing! We had a great day at CGC Chelmsford on 27th Feb at the 'Big Brew Cafe' and then I was privileged to have a stall and a short slot at the 'Be' Attitude conference last weekend. Great to be able to start to share a little of my vision for STCTW with you guys. I hope as my web-site grows you will find articles to inspire and products to buy. Watch this space for plans for a local fair trade shop and cafe! Exciting or what?!

With that in mind, and my up-coming parties I'm expanding my range- see Hatti Accessories page, and look at the beautiful recycled sari blankets from Kolkatta by Sari Bari. I'm so excited about the range and opportunities there are to source high quality products from so many groups/co-operatives around the world which have great provenance and supply chain ethics. I hope you will love the products too and enjoy the stories behind the items and the sense of making a difference to real people around the globe.