The fashion industry is undergoing a transformative shift towards environmental responsibility and innovation. Here are ten pioneering companies leading this change:

Sheep Inc.

This knitwear brand produces garments with a naturally negative carbon footprint. They source ZQ-certified Merino wool from regenerative farms, ensuring ethical animal treatment and sustainable land management. Utilizing 3D Wholegarment® knitting technology powered by solar energy, they create zero-waste products. Each sweater includes a unique tag allowing customers to trace its origins and environmental impact, fostering transparency and connection to the product’s lifecycle. Visit their website

Sampla:

Specializing in vegan footwear, Sampla crafts shoes from innovative materials like AppleSkin™, derived from repurposed apple waste from the juice industry. This approach reduces reliance on animal products and utilizes agricultural by-products, minimizing waste. Their designs combine sustainability with contemporary aesthetics, offering eco-friendly alternatives without compromising style. Visit their website

Vivobarefoot:

Focused on minimalist footwear that promotes natural movement, Vivobarefoot uses sustainable materials such as recycled plastics and bio-based alternatives. Committed to regenerative practices, they collaborate with communities to restore natural ecosystems and incorporate circular economy principles by offering repair services and recycling programs for their products. Visit their website

Babaà:

A Spanish brand offering timeless knitwear made from 100% natural materials like cotton and wool. Babaà ensures local production in Spain, reducing transportation emissions and supporting local artisans. By focusing on creating durable, high-quality pieces, they encourage consumers to invest in long-lasting clothing, countering the fast-fashion mentality. Visit their website

Patagonia:

Renowned for its environmental activism, Patagonia integrates sustainability into every aspect of its business. They utilize recycled materials, such as turning discarded fishing nets into gear, and promote organic cotton through their Regenerative Organic Certified Cotton program. Patagonia also donates 1% of sales to environmental causes and encourages customers to repair and reuse products through their Worn Wear program, fostering a circular economy. Visit their website

Reformation:

Prioritizing sustainable fabrics and ethical manufacturing processes, Reformation uses materials like TENCEL™, deadstock, and vintage fabrics, reducing the demand for new resources. Their RefScale tool allows customers to track the environmental impact of their purchases, promoting transparency. Reformation’s factory in Los Angeles operates with sustainable practices and fair wages, ensuring social responsibility alongside environmental consciousness. Visit their website

Allbirds:

Known for comfortable shoes made from natural materials like merino wool and eucalyptus fibers, Allbirds has achieved carbon neutrality by focusing on renewable materials, responsible energy use, and carbon offset programs. Each product includes a carbon footprint label, educating consumers on its environmental impact and encouraging informed purchasing decisions. Visit their website

Stella McCartney:

A pioneer in sustainable luxury fashion, Stella McCartney avoids the use of leather and fur, opting for innovative materials like recycled polyester and organic cotton. The brand emphasizes transparency in its supply chain and collaborates with organizations promoting environmental awareness. By proving that luxury and sustainability can coexist, Stella McCartney sets a high standard for the fashion industry. Visit their website

Eileen Fisher:

Emphasizing simplicity and sustainability, Eileen Fisher uses organic and recycled materials in their designs. Their take-back program encourages customers to return old pieces, which are then upcycled into new creations, promoting a circular fashion model. The brand also prioritizes fair labor practices and supply chain transparency, ensuring ethical production alongside environmental responsibility. Visit their website

Girlfriend Collective:

Offering activewear made from recycled materials like water bottles and fishing nets, Girlfriend Collective uses eco-friendly dyes and ensures ethical manufacturing with fair wages and safe working conditions. Their ReGirlfriend program encourages customers to recycle old products, which are then transformed into new items, closing the loop and reducing textile waste. Visit their website

These companies exemplify how the fashion industry can innovate towards more sustainable and future-forward practices, setting benchmarks for others to follow.

The post Top 10 Future-Forward and Sustainable Fashion Companies appeared first on Green Prophet.

Chocolate is alternately portrayed as a sinful delight – damaging to your health and your waistline – or as a food with health benefits. So which is it? According to the Mayo Clinic website, a trusted health authority in the United States: “flavanols in cocoa beans have antioxidant effects that reduce cell damage implicated in heart disease. Flavanols also help lower blood pressure and improve vascular function”

So there is something positive in the treat we love. But before we can answer the question, “Is chocolate friend or delicious foe?” we have to ask ourselves which chocolate we’re talking about. To do so, let’s take a short historical look.

Chocolate was first enjoyed as a drink by Mayan and Aztec cultures thousands of years ago, but the beverage they revered as magical was bitter pure chocolate. The Europeans adopted it, added a little honey or cane sugar, and it became a hit.

By 1868, Cadbury found a way to process it into a solid bar. Without many additives, it likely had many of the nutritious qualities that those ancient civilizations valued. However today’s Cadbury Dairy Milk has a lot of added ingredients, even though some of its bars may be certified as Fair Trade. It’s just full of other stuff.

Unwanted things in chocolate

Milk Chocolate (sugar; milk; eggs; chocolate; cocoa butter)

Lactose; soy lecithin;

PGPR, emulsifier; natural and artificial flavor.

What are these extra ingredients in chocolate?

PGPR (Polyglycerol Polyricinoleate) is an emulsifier and a cheap replacement for cocoa butter.

Soy lecithin, like any other soy product, is probably made from genetically modified soy.

Natural and artificial flavor – this could be anything. Unhealthy ingredients hide anonymously under these labels.

So while chocolate itself may have health giving properties, there are three problems with many of the products found in the marketplace today.

1. The percentage of chocolate may be quite low (nowhere near what the Mayans and Aztec were drinking). Look for the highest percentage.

2. Some of the additives may be harmful to your health.

3. Much of the chocolate on the market contains so much sugar that it negates whatever benefit you gain from the chocolate itself.

In Israel, for instance, the chocolate market has improved dramatically over the last twenty years. It’s now easy to find chocolate with 70 percent or 85% to 100% cocoa in supermarkets. Some brands contain no soy lecithin or other questionable ingredients. I would recommend these for health-conscious people.

Brands we tried recently and love and which can be ordered online include ChocoSoul from Toronto which we ate plenty of this past summer.

Think fair trade and organic too

In addition, many top quality chocolate shops now line the streets of main cities in Israel, and I imagine the same is true in other Middle East cities which likely both imports and give home to small chocolatiers. Ask them about their ingredients or follow your taste buds: The best tasting chocolate is made with the purest ingredients.

Other brands of chocolate are available in health food stores. Many have the advantage of being organic and some of them labeled fair trade. Child slavery and other abuses are ongoing problems in the chocolate trade and should be taken into consideration when making your purchase.

The only way to identify chocolate that does not involve child slavery is to either buy one specifically labeled as such, or one that is on the Fairtrade International list.

Fair Trade Chocolate We Like:

Alter Eco sells organic chocolate that regenerates ecosystems, empowers farmers, and reverses climate change.

GiddyYo is crafting organic, plant-based, dark chocolate, coffee, superfoods and bodycare.

Belvas –  the first organic chocolate factory in Europe and Belvas was named “Europe’s greenest micro-business” by the European Commission (EMAS award).

Camino is a Canadian brand of fair trade and organic food products, owned by La Siembra Co-operative, based in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Established in 1999, La Siembra Co-operative became the first registered importers of Fairtrade Certified cocoa and sugar in North America and today works with 25 producer co-ops, supporting more than 47,500 family farmers in 14 countries.

Chocolove is a chocolate manufacturer with headquarters and a manufacturing facility in Boulder, Colorado, founded in 1995 by entrepreneur Timothy Moley. The company produces all-natural and organic chocolate bars. Chocolove imports chocolate and cocoa butter from Belgium to produce its chocolate.

ChocoSol is rooted in Toronto’s St. Clair West neighbourhood of Regal Heights, where the team turns cacao into stone-ground dark chocolate, develops their growing Chocosoil project on the rooftop garden, and hosts behind-the-scenes tours and events in their Cacao Commons.

Have a favorite brand to share? Add to the list by submitting in comments or email us chocolate@greenprophet,com

Why is September 13th World Chocolate Day?

World Chocolate Day is a yearly celebration that pays homage to one of the world’s most beloved treats: chocolate. This special date is celebrated every September 13th and is steeped in history, tradition, and, of course, lots of chocolate.

The idea started in 1995 when International Chocolate Day was established in France and this day changed to September 13th, the birthday of Roald Dahl, the children’s book author who wrote the iconic novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Check out these other posts on fair trade:
Fair Trade Sweets on Valentines Day
Feasting on Fair Trade This Ramadan
The Little Fair Trade Shop Shows Masdar its Big Heart

The post Chocolate lovers guide to green chocolate appeared first on Green Prophet.

In the beautiful streets of Jaffa near the Flea Market, Ada Hanina Cafe is a marvellous cafe must-try, an exquisite and artistic coffee shop offering the highest quality coffee. As a coffee guru who enjoys trying different coffee shops, Ada Hanina Cafe is unlike any other.

Owner Tomer Adam Lenzinger has been running this cafe for four years now and hasn’t disappointed. With his well-crafted blends featuring both dark and light roasts from the best coffee bean destinations in the world, you are guaranteed a fabulous cup of coffee.

What makes Ada Hanina stand out like any other cafe is how Tomer integrated his love of music into the design of the cafe. An element that stands out once you walk into Ada Hanina is the large stereo speaker and sound system. Either Tomer himself will play music or he will bring in others to play.

Tomer told me he plays music as often as he can, and he will play vinyl. For him, it’s all about the experience of a cafe, and for that reason, he designed the shop with two doors, so you can go in and go out. “It’s all about the vibe,” Tomer said, “a cafe is about talking, exchanging, taking a break, falling in love, or writing a book.” Coffee brings people together, he said and that was what was important in the designing and planning of the cafe, blending all these aspects into one.

Sourcing his own beans, applying fair trade

The source of Tomer’s coffee beans comes from far and wide: including Africa, Brazil, Columbia, Guatemala, and more. The farmers they work with are the best, specifically the ones in Africa, the beans are wild and are picked by hand, never purified, and no use of chemicals or salts. You can watch videos of the farmers in action on their Instagram. The whole idea, says Tomer, is having fewer hands between us and the farmer. In addition, whatever is not used in the selection process gets composted.

The farmers in Ethiopia are being taught how to harvest and package more sustainably. It is important to Tomer that the farmers in Ethiopia are receiving at least 70% of the profits. Over in Brazil, the terra farmers in Brazil are the first and best rainforest alliance coffee farm. Overall, Tomer strives to have the best connections between him and his farmers to ensure quality coffee is delivered to his customers.

Sustainable water

Like I previously wrote about in my article on Tel Aviv’s Vegan Fest vegan festival, Ada Hanina cafe also has vegan options. The most common milk option they use is Oatly oat milk, (you can make your own at home) which is used 70% of the time in the cafe.

According to Tomer, almond milk takes away from the flavor of the coffee and just turns the coffee into an almond flavor. He also is not a fan of the popular trend in America of flavor additives, which are sugary and are used to disguise the taste of bad coffee. In addition, Ada Hanina only sells water in boxes to take away from the plastic waste issue.

The straws are from the Upper Galilee and are made of real straw. Tomer believes the biggest environmental issue in Israel right now is the issue of plastic, and wishes there were to-go cups for the cafe that were made of sustainable material. He also thinks there should be more green electricity and says we are moving way too slowly in our efforts to make energy all renewable.

His favorite thing about his job is having customers come up to him and tell him that this is the best coffee they’ve ever had. He enjoys guiding his customers through the coffee selection process and finding the perfect coffee for them. The inspiration behind the cafe is all about having “a very, very good coffee with very, very good music around,” Tomer said emphasizing the very. He’s met people all around the world at coffee conferences who tried their coffee and asked him why he doesn’t bag it and sell it all over the world.

I had a coffee with oat milk, which Tomer said was made with about 20 hand-picked cherries, each having two seeds inside. I also had one of their best sellers and one of Tomer’s favorites, the Worka Wuri blend from Ethiopia, made wild and in an anaerobic process, meaning it was made fermented without oxygen.

It was delicious and had notes of flowers and fruit. Tomer most importantly wants to share with people the beauty of coffee and have access to taste the high-quality coffee beans that are offered inside his cafe in Jaffa. I highly recommend checking out Ada Hanina and asking Tomer all about his coffee. Check out our Green Guide to Jaffa for more sustainable travel ideas.

The post Jaffa’s home-roasted coffee and music curated at Ada Hanina Cafe appeared first on Green Prophet.

For some years having a B Corp certification in the United States meant you were leading the competition on how to build a sustainable business. Is it organic? Do you pay your adult workers a fair wage? Are you reducing the carbon cycle of your product in a meaningful way? Can you see 100 years into the future? If you passed a series of challenges, and paid the yearly dues, you could join the B Corp club. 

But the Fair World Project – a fair trade advocacy organization and certification watchdog – is calling bluff on B Corp. By letting Nespresso wear the badge of honor as a B Corp company, they petition, the trusted B Corp label is no longer meaningful.

“There’s a long history of certifications getting co-opted by corporations as they reach the mainstream,” says Dana Geffner, Executive Director of Fair World Project. “We’ve seen it with fair trade certification as well as with organics. Unfortunately, Nespresso’s certification suggests that B Corp Certification is heading that way as well.”

Among those calling to retract B Corp status from Nespresso, which makes the polluting coffee pods, are other ethical coffee brands and sustainable businesses such as Cooperative Coffees, Exilior Coffee, Peace Coffee, and Thanksgiving Coffee Company.

Dr. Bronner’s, Grove Collaborative, LAUDE the Label, and Lotus Foods have also signed the letter to B Lab Global, the organization that runs the B Corp certification process and label.

Here is the Nespresso B Corp marketing page they list on their site with a score of 84.

The companies against Nespresso joining as a B Corp collectively write: 

“The fact that Nespresso can achieve a score that allows them to be certified as a B Corp and use the Certification to greenwash its business model and practices demonstrates that the B Impact Assessment scoring system and certification process is in serious need of repair.”

Nespresso produces single-serve coffee capsules. George Clooney who is a part owner of the company along with Nestlé is “saddened by child labor on Nespresso farms’ – article from 2020. While they do provide a bag to encourage recycling of their pods, few people bother to do it. But there are bigger problems than that:

Nespresso received B Corp status on May 2022 and this is “despite a recent history of human rights violations on farms that grow their coffee including child labor, wage theft, and abuse of factory workers,” writes the Fair World Project in a press briefing they sent Green Prophet.

B Lab, a non-profit organization, created and awards the B Corp certification to for-profit companies that voluntarily meet certain standards of transparency, accountability, sustainability, and performance, with an aim to “Be a Force for Good” in the business community and create value for society beyond shareholder profits.

One example: In 2018, Peace Coffee was named among B Lab’s “Best For Community” list, which includes businesses that earned a Community score in the top 10 percent on the B Impact Assessment. 

“We take the commitment to be ‘In it for Good’ seriously,” says Lee Wallace,” CEO of Peace Coffee. “It shapes every aspect of our business, from the way we reinvest profits with the farmer cooperatives who grow our coffee to our commitment to bike delivery and giving back to our local community. That’s not been the norm in a coffee industry historically defined by the likes of Nestlé’s Nespresso—but we think it should be.”

The Fair World Project members say they are concerned and that Certified B Corp brands should hold higher standards to avoid “greenwashing” by the certification. They are calling that the greater Certified B Corp community demand the same. 

“B Corp certification should take account of historically exploitative companies who do not take care of the people and communities impacted by their supply chains,” says David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s, the top-selling natural brand of soap in North America and third-highest scoring Certified B Corp overall, who also signed onto the letter.

“The entire fair trade movement was born to address inequities and exploitation in the coffee supply chains of major CPGs like Nestlé, Nespresso’s parent. Given Nespresso’s recent and egregious track record of sourcing from coffee farms engaging in documented human rights abuses, it is disappointing that the brand was granted B Corp status.”

How can B Corps do better? Fair World offers some ideas:

After the announcement was made that Nespresso received B Corp Certification, Fair World Project published “Nespresso: Known for Human Rights Violations, Now B Corp Certified,” an article further detailing the issues surrounding the company’s dismal track record on human rights and the environment, authored by Anna Canning, Campaigns Manager of Fair World Project. 
 
“We’re seeing a grim trend of B Corp certified companies engaging in union-busting and other violations of working people’s fundamental rights,” says Canning. “Is B Lab going to take action, or is their certification going to become yet another way for companies to rebrand the exploitative status quo as ethical?”

Are you a registered B Corp against Nespresso joining your league? Sign the petition here. 

We’ve reached out to Nespresso for comment. 
 

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Meet Ondi McMaster-Chullil, yoga adherent and founder of mindful textiles & clothes company in India, AtelierOM + OM khadi She started her business because of Gandhi.

I don’t follow gurus but I saw video by one, not too long ago and it made me think over and over again. This “happiness guru” said: a smart person does what they love. A genius does what they must.

It stayed with me when I travelled to India earlier this year. That saying came to life when I met Ondi McMaster-Chullil. She was one of the yoga teachers at the Artjuna Cafe in Goa, India. I would later learn that she made clothes that I love, basically the main things I bought for myself in India.

I know it’s not entirely possible and that our egos serve us as humans in specific ways, but Ondi –– as a teacher –– seemed to be egoless. She was there, for you as a teacher. Some weeks later I found out she made clothes, and the shop I had been admiring next door, was hers. I would later learn that Ondi, at least to me, and at least in this moment was one of those geniuses that does what she must. And she would be one of the women I would need to know better as I try to understand my own path to womanhood, personhood.

We usually throw our heart’s values out the window when it comes to work. Most of us work for others, with a value culture already instilled that workplace, or we have to bend what works with our freelance or small business dreams in order to make real money for ourselves and family.

Ondi felt different. She hasn’t stepped out of society, she’s glued herself into the middle of her world, a world she cares about, a world she has the power to transform. She lives in India, but is also connected to the Western world. Find her in New York and the West Coast this summer as she makes and sells her special sustainably-made clothes in India and around the world.

“Trying to be meaningful is not the purpose of this business,” she says. “I am trying to make my life more meaningful to me.”

Ondi is married to an Indian man whom she met at the Gandhi Ashram. He is a South Indian, from the Kerala Tribe, a warm group of people believed to be among the “original Indians,” says Ondi. Today you see a lot of mixed races but their tribe is more ancient, the Dravidian Race she explains: “Our meeting at the Gandhi Ashram was synchronistic. I started my business because of Gandhi,” she says.

Accepted to the National Institute of Design in 1995 to study textiles yet decided against it due to financial costs, she went on to travel independently and study craft makers across India in the 90s, “I needed a mission. If you come to India without one you will get one pretty fast,” she says. 

The southern Californian describes herself as laid-back casual. She graduated from highschool in Japan, and out of college worked for Issey Miyake in NYC a company built on the highest form of Japanese aesthetic. “He’s my mentor in terms of design.” You could say that all the work I am doing now in India, I could also accomplish this in Japan.”

OM khadi textiles are hand spun, hand woven, the way Gandhi had encouraged the Indian people to “spin” as an act of resistance to industrialisation”… during their Independence movement in the 1940s.

Like Gandhi suggested his people do, Ondi’s clothes are anti-industrial, slow-made, 100% made by hand – even her upcycled fabrics are hand quilted into new fabrics. Among the people and companies she works with in India – the spinners, weavers and dyers- she supports women 100% first, if she can. In total Ondi works with about 20 organizations that are ethically producing parts of her end-product, from raw materials to the detailing, and she works with them to invigorate their own traditions, while adding a bit. “I’ve inspired the quiltmakers to work a bit differently,” she says, often encouraging oddly fitting pieces to go together in unbalanced ways. “To make things more randomly,” she explains. “When I grow, they grow.”

A total of 50 different fabrics can be found on the floor of her small showcase store in Anjuna, and she carries a similar and wide variety of products at the famous Saturday night flea market. Some of her materials are pure organic cotton, silk and cotton weaves, linen or non-violent silk. She uses all natural dyes in blockprinting, like indigo.

I now own the same coat as Lenny Kravitz

You can “feel” Ondi and her process in the clothes. I ended up splurging and bought 4 coats: an overcoat (the same one owned by Lenny Kravitz she tells me and which is very Japanese), a kimono, a hand-dyed navy blazer and a pink wrap jacket which reminded me of the caftans from Azerbaijan. Compared to shops like H&M or Zara, you can’t compare her pieces to a mass manufactured piece of dead weight. You feel the difference. Your soul does, for sure.

“Yeah I do believe that there is a vibrational quality to my clothes,” says Ondi. “Everything is a vibration and how it was made is implicit in this energy. Every vibration in this room is a record. I heard that if potters had the right laser to listen to their wares you could hear the sounds in the room while they were making their pots.”

This resonates with me, because I used to be a potter.    

She goes deeper still. “Dosha” is an ephemeral sheath on our body. There are finer sheaths there too, until you reach the first one, the closest to your native spirit in its pure form. It is organic, made of this world.

I watch Ondi go through her things, showing me the patterns, the designs. She’s a woman but carries an innocence with her. She’s strong, beautiful and has a gorgeous body. You can see it. But she’s not exaggerating it. Her clothes accentuate this “sensual” energy or sheath, not the often vulgarized sexual energy played up in fashion today to sell clothes to teenagers.

“Why parade your sexuality for the universe?” she asks. “When there can only be one person you desire.”

We agree that women in burkas are an extreme revolt against this sexualization. Or it’s the “Catholic School Girl Mentality, telling us we can’t so we do. Patriarchy is exerting its last hand on us,” she prophesizes. “It’s killing us and invigorating us. We need to find the moderate way.

“Our consciousness is not the same [as a man’s] and it will never be the same. You need to protect it, knowing that courage is not always being the one on the frontline.”

Clothes can help us, with a “need to be more discriminating in how we act, clothes as a sheath on us, clothes give meaning,” she explains. 

OMkhadi, the clothes started as an art installation with Khadi since the hand spun fabric was that which Gandhi always promoted. “And I did some costume design for film and TV around this idea and some world’s came together about the consciousness of materials. I wanted all of those worlds to collide,” Ondi explains. 

Look at the result? She does all her hand blockprinting by hand, twice a year. Then works with the raw materials to pull them together into pieces you could wear for years.

While it’s best to travel to Anjuna in Goa to go to her shop or to visit Ondi at the famous Saturday night flea, she does pop up shops in New York City and on the West Coast in the summers. Be in touch here for OMkhadi coming near you. Turns out one of the style of coats I bought is also owned by rocker Lenny Kravitz, says Ondi, not supplying more details. I am sure he feels like a rock star when wearing it.

Also Ondi is producing a few boutique travel India tours so people can also meet what she loves and knows about the crafts, flavors and movements of India. Follow her on Instagram to get the latest. 

::AtelierOm on IG

Update 2023: Since Covid times, Om Khadi has been transplanted to the United States. 

The post Weaving Ghandi’s hope into her coats appeared first on Green Prophet.

We loved the feedback from the latest gadget for coffee lovers: a hybrid alarm clock that tells you to rise and shine by brewing a fresh cup of joe on your bedside table.

I’d like to present you with a spin on that old cup of joe, in the form of a nutrient-rich, energy-boosting coffee smoothie.

It can’t realistically serve as a wake-up call, as the thunderous blending of the ingredients (especially if you have a Vitamix!) would make for a very rude awakening.

However, it’s well worth getting up for. No need to go to Starbucks, either.

Recipe for healthy coffee smoothie:

• 8 to 10 Coffee ice cubes. You can brew coffee ahead of time and pour it into an ice cube tray to freeze. Here’s a tip: If ever you have leftovers from the morning’s brew, pour it into open slots in the tray!
• 1 cup almond milk.
• ¼ ripe avocado.
• 2 tsp raw cacao nibs, sweetened or unsweetened
• 1 tablespoon hemp protein powder
• Pure maple syrup or maple cream as sweetener; amount based on preference! For the ratios provided, I like to use 1 tablespoon maple cream.

These ingredients are team players; they work together so well! Using the measurements above, you’ll get about a pint of smoothie.

Consider using certified organic and fair trade coffee, to encourage responsible small-scale farming and environmental sustainability.

As far as flavor variations or additions for this smoothie are concerned, go for it!

I took this recipe from the blog, Passport to a Healthy Me, but experimenting in the kitchen is always fun for me. For this coffee drink, I’m thinking to play around with vanilla or cardamom, next time I make it (tomorrow morning).

Image: from my own kitchen.

The post Ultimate organic coffee smoothie that will nourish your body and taste buds (recipe) appeared first on Green Prophet.

Gradually over the past two decades, Lakiya sisters Khadra and Hanan Elsana organized Sidreh, named for a tough desert tree. Since 1991, the Sidreh center provides a safe, female-only environment where the women practice the traditional art of Bedouin weaving. While at the center, they can learn how to read and write in Arabic and Hebrew, and how to earn a high school diploma. Some of the enterprising ones have gone on to start businesses or pursue higher education.

Khadra Elsana with a hand woven carpet

The Elsana sisters go on speaking tours regularly. Earlier this year, Hanan was at the United Nations headquarters in New York discussing the plight of Bedouin women. Khadra recently accepted a social advocacy prize in the United States.

Because of the Sidreh center, many Bedouin women in the region of Lakiya now feel comfortable leaving the house. Over time, their fathers and husbands grew to accept that the women could go outside the village for work, and even drive cars. Their daughters have started going to college, thanks to the small amounts of money the mothers make from the weaving initiative, and thanks to special programs created for them at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

“The men are surprised to see so many women driving today,” Khadra tells ISRAEL21c.

Hand spun, hand dyed wool

It wasn’t easy, says the mother of four and now executive director of Sidreh. In the beginning, “women here weren’t even walking on the streets,” she says. She had to fight her community to accept her leaving the home, and she had to persuade her own husband to agree. Yet in less than one generation, she points out, the women have come a long way.

In years past, the size of a Bedouin tent was determined by how many goat, camel or sheep’s wool carpets could be made for the dwelling. But without the need for tents anymore, the women of Sidreh have found a new way to weave ancient skills into the newly developing culture.

The handmade carpets start with the collection of the pure wool from Awasi sheep, or raw goat or camel wool discarded by shearers. The women of Sidreh gather it and bring it to the center for cleaning. At the center or at home, they wind it onto spools, dye and dry it, and then use it for weaving on traditional floor looms.

A four-meter-long strip of carpet can take about a week to weave. It’s a labor of love, with not a lot of profits, but the income from the onsite store and other fair-trade stores in cities such as Jaffa give the women enough money to buy self-confidence.

For a small fee, the women will demonstrate the entire process, with some hands-on opportunities for groups. They are open to having a dialogue with visitors, sharing details about their lives, dreams and ambitions.

“The women of Sidreh have done this to show that they can be honorable people,” says Yeela Ranaan, who runs the Bedouin Experience travel agency. A trip to the Sidreh center can be combined with other women-only Bedouin enterprises such as the embroidery center at the Association for the Improvement of Women’s Status in Lakiya, or Desert Daughter, founded by a Bedouin medicine woman’s granddaughter.

My daughter tries her hand at spinning wool by hand.

Ranaan says the situation still needs further improvement. “About half the women in this town still don’t get out. And their daughters don’t complete high school,” says Raanan.

But for the other half, the story’s been changed.

This story was first printed on ISRAEL21c – www.israel21c.org

The post Sidreh Weaves Bedouin Tradition Into Their Future appeared first on Green Prophet.

A back-to-the-land movement is blossoming in the Palestinian Authority. “The Palestinian future is in the land.” Farmer Khader Khader said, standing in his organic olive grove in the northern West Bank village of Nus Jubail.

Many Palestinian farmers are switching to organic farming methods, and selling their oil to high-end grocers in the US and Europe.

According to the aid group Oxfam, an estimated 17,000 tons of olive oil is produced annually in the West Bank by thousands of farmers, some of whom are producing fair trade olive products. Olive oil has unique traditional and cultural significance in the region. Most Palestinian olive oil is produced for local consumption. But this product is becoming increasingly important for Palestinians’ connection to the global economy.

The business of organic farming, for international markets, was first introduced to the West Bank in 2004. According to Nasser Abu Farha of the Canaan Fair Trade Association (who we’ve covered here), one of the companies selling organic Palestinian olive oil to distributors abroad, today at least $5 million worth of organic olive oil is exported from the territories every year.

“About half of all Palestinian commercial oil exports,” he said. “The future of Palestinian exports is in added value, through environmental and social accountability. People want to know: Where is this oil coming from? Whose life is it changing?”

Around 930 Palestinian farmers have fair-trade and organic certification. Another 140 are in the process of “converting” their land, which takes two-to three-years of testing and monitoring the soil until it is officially certified as free from pesticides and chemicals.

Lack of rain and Israeli trade restrictions are among the many challenges these farmers face. But new digital technology and the rising demand for organic produce are giving Palestinian farmers new ways to compete in global markets.

In Whole Foods supermarkets in New York and New Jersey, organic Palestinian olive oil is sold under the “Alter Eco” brand, Farha said.

“I don’t throw rocks,” said Khader, in reference to young men who hurl stones at Israeli soldiers. The proud farmer, Khader, gestured towards the rock terraces he built in his organic olive grove. “I use them to build our future.”

Read more about green movements in Palestine:

Mapping Palestine’s Environmental Civil Society – The Good, the Bad and the Uncooperative

Could Phones Revolutionize Palestinian Agriculture?

Investing in Ramallah’s Children Key to Sustainability

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Free from the dilemma of buying the free-range or organic eggs (I own my own coop with eight hens), the Israeli government has decided to make a law that will require the Made-In label on every egg sold in Israeli supermarkets. The public was aghast apparently at the news that millions of the eggs sold on the local market do not originate in Israel, but come from countries such as Turkey which does not control for salmonella. Some 80 million eggs are imported to Israel every year from Turkey, more than half of the 3 percent of all foreign imports and the health inspection on these eggs are limited, according to Haaretz. Some of them are sold under the Tnuva label, which includes pictures of hens out to pasture in verdant fields. Likely the opposite of how these eggs are raised. 

The egg market in Israelis huge, turning over NIS 710 million a year (about $177 million USD). The dominant players are Tnuva with a 44% market share, followed by Glicksman (21%) and M. Lesser with 10%.

According to surveys more than 80 percent of Israelis would buy local eggs if given the choice, so the companies have an interest to hide this information from consumers. The new labelling would include a code that tells the conditions in which the chickens were raised.

The label law was reported this week in Haaretz, and it comes on the heels of last summer’s tent protests and an Israeli public that is demanding more and more transparency in food prices and the food market in general. I hope for all Israelis that the egg effort to label every egg will pay off in other directions too. There have been scandals in Israel over re-frozen beef and frozen fish from China pumped with water. And as they come to awareness, one firm has found outrageous levels of potential carcinogens in ceramic pots and pans.

Just today a local water report testing water at the tap from municipalities throughout Israel found unreasonable levels of heavy metals being supplied to homes throughout the country. A vast majority of the problems were found in Arab towns and villages. While the government regularly tests water in its municipal pipes, with the water coming up clean, this is the first time that water was tested at the taps. Outdated pipes are the reason for the unusually high levels of contaminants in the water, the report (and not yet online) stated.

So you’ve got a label on your eggs. One that you can feel good about. It’s time for the public to know where all our food comes from so that suppliers will be forced to be transparent, and the public better able to make educated decisions with their pockets.

Image of organic eggs from Shutterstock

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On the road, you were always by my side. Together we traveled from New York to Los Angeles, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and we braved mountain passes in the Rockies I never thought I could face. It was harder to find you in Africa and the Middle East. At times, I was too poor to afford your finer self and settled for the instant version of you instead. It always felt like cheating. 

We were inseparable and everybody knew it. Nobody dared come between you and me, especially during our fierce early morning embrace, but in the back of my mind I always knew there would come a time when I’d have to say goodbye.

See, Joe, it’s not healthy to love a thing too much. My passion for you was unreasonable. I would get anxious without you by my side and sometimes, lately, I would even get sick if we weren’t together first thing in the morning.

If I wanted to leave the city to trek in the desert or the mountains, I had to plan ahead: how will I bring Joe? Sometimes it seemed like I couldn’t leave, that I couldn’t even spend a single day without a little taste of your sweet love.

Surely, in real love, there should be a space between?

And every time I brought you into me, I knew I was paying the price. That you were sucking the hydration right out of me and quickening my heart rate, but I couldn’t get enough of you. You were my rebellion. With you I told the world I have the right to destroy myself and I kept after you.

Also Joe, and please don’t be hurt when I tell you this, but the earth pays a price to provide for you. It was innocent enough in the beginning, but you are so powerful that everybody wants, nay needs, your beans in their lives.

I wasn’t jealous, but many workers in Guatemala, Kenya and elsewhere also suffer on your behalf and I can’t forgive myself for that. So now is a time for healing: for the earth, for the workers and yes, even for me.

Trust me, it hasn’t been easy. I can hardly pull myself out of bed and I still feel sick for want of you. You’ve left your mark on my soul (and kidneys, no doubt) and I’ll always wonder if I’ve made the right decision. But I know that the pain of losing you will subside over time.

Although I will miss waking up to your intoxicating smile, it will get easier, and I will be healthy again.

Farewell my beloved Joe. Thank you for the good times we shared.

Image: a cup of coffee with a heart, Shutterstock

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