ECHOstore eView: November

As we end our first three months and the year that gave birth to ECHOstore, we wish to share with you our holiday news. What a way to end the year! Stressed out and tired, but happy and euphoric, we have lived through three months of keeping ECHOstore alive and kicking, and being recognized!

We submitted an entry to the First Business Plan Competition of the Philippine BiD (Business in Development) Challenge, a network which provides coaching and investor matching for sustainable enterprises. Now on its third year, the Philippine BiD Challenge is presented in partnership with Dutch non-government organization Fair Ventures, and is organized by Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP). This international competition has created sustainable development products for poor communities in Bolivia, Ecuador, Jordan, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Argentina, Peru, and Columbia. The Philippines was the first in the world to host its own version of the BiD Challenge three years ago, and has helped small or micro entrepreneurs start businesses by helping them with business plans, coaching, and even partnering with investors.

The ECHOstore plan we submitted included the flagship store at Serendra and the café. Besides retail sales, ECHOstore will also offer seminars, workshops, and mentoring on entrepreneurship, product development, branding, marketing, and packaging. Our gondolas were the third part of our proposal. These display fixtures are miniature versions of the full retail store. The gondolas will occupy minimum space—approximately one square meter, are seven feet high, and placed in retail stores, duty free shops, hotel lobby stores, and other retail environments where people look for gift items from various artisan groups. Products will come from marginalized communities who otherwise have no access to retail markets. All products will be fair trade-compliant, environment-friendly, and sustainable.

And so we won all the prizes, besting 106 entries from the Philippines and emerging as one of the eight winners who each got P100,000 startup capital to further expand their business. We also received a special prize—free one-year website hosting for an e-commerce website and payment gateway. And, finally, ECHOstore was named Philippine Champion alongside Rags2Riches (who, by the way, was our first partner organization and one of the first products we brought into ECHOstore).

We are set to exhibit our concepts in Amsterdam in the international BiD marketplace on January 27, 2009. There, hopefully, international funding groups and agencies choose us as a viable concept so we can get more funds to help us expand and develop the ECHOstore sustainable lifestyle community.

(Left to right) Rene Fortuno of PBSP joins Reena Francisco who is carrying the one-year award for a free e-commerce website, Chit Juan holding KLM's plane representing the trip to Amsterdam for the International BiD Marketplace in January 2009, and Jeannie Javelosa carrying the Php100,000 prize given to ECHOstore as startup capital.

GIFTS OF HOPE

ECHOstore has caused quite a stir at the Correctional Institute of Women (CIW). This is because we've offered Gifts of Hope to all our clients and friends, and the Christmas baskets were all made by CIW prisoners from recycled newspapers and magazines. But it is not only these women who have hope. Through your Christmas purchases at ECHOstore, our other partner groups have also felt this season as truly a season of hope. ECHOstore's connection to the CIW is through Kitty Arambulo-Clinton, who brought to our attention the livelihood project of the women prisoners.

Creativity Unbounded: Inspired Secret Treasures from the CIW

By Kitty Arambulo-Clinton

The verdant and tranquil compound of the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) feels like the countryside, where women work amidst lush gardens, vegetable patches, and abundant fruit trees. The main road towards the principal buildings and offices winds past small, but well-kept houses in front of which small children play and an occasional sari-sari store where people flock to snack and chat, all set in patches of green with colorful flowers and plants. Yet this idyllic setting belies the institution's true purpose. Set in the middle of Mandaluyong City and founded in 1931, the CIW is a prison; under the stewardship of Attorney Rachel Ruelo, the CIW's objectives are "to keep women convicts in custody for their safety and for the protection and security of society, and to prepare and rehabilitate these women for a better life upon eventual freedom from confinement."

During my weekly visits to the CIW, initially to just connect with the inmates, and later to teach yoga classes, I've gotten to know some of its more than 1,500 inhabitants: they are young and old, from all walks of life, generally poor, but some are well-to-do, and are incarcerated for a wide range of crimes, mostly for painfully long periods of their lives. What these women have in common is that at one point in their lives they made a mistake, for which they are now paying dearly. It is easy to think that this could only happen to someone else. However, talking to these women makes it clear that the same fate could befall anyone: to make a very bad decision and not get away with it.

Most inmates comprehend the gravity of their mistakes and accept the punishment meted out by a justice system that doesn't always seem so just. They often embrace religion as their beacon, offering solace and guidance in the seemingly endless days of their imprisoned existence. Many have taken the opportunity to join the CIW's educational program, which allows them to continue their studies or even set their first steps on the academic path, literally learning how to read and write for the first time in their lives, a skill that will serve them well once they have served their sentences.

What I found most striking in the CIW is the workshop—a small building at one corner of the compound where inmates with drive and skills spend their days on creative and productive exploits. Some of them operate sewing machines, making inmate uniforms, potholders, or blankets. Others make crocheted products and things made out of beads, such as bags, wallets, and key chains. All these products are sold solely in the CIW shop then, and now at ECHOstore.

A handful of women in particular deserve closer attention: they work in the paper crafts section and make beautiful woven items-from bags, fruit baskets, and tissue boxes to flowers, hampers, and doll houses, and even Christmas parols. What is amazing is that they create all these products from the pages of telephone directories. Patiently rolled, glued, and sometimes wrapped in colored paper, individual strands are then woven and varnished to look like wood or wicker.

Felicia (not her real name), one of the senior paper weavers, was in the CIW for 19 years and 11 months. Her work is of remarkable creativity and finesse, exuding a love for the craft, as well as years of acquired experience and patience. She started doing these paper crafts to earn a little money, as inmates usually have to pay for many of the prison's amenities (like hot water) and small additional comforts (such as 3-in-1 coffee sachets and snacks). This was also how she financed her medical treatments for thyroid cancer. Over time, it became an essential part of her life in confinement, a way to focus her attention and release her creative energy. (At the time of print of this edition, Felicia had been released from prison after serving her term).

Most CIW inmates pass their days in quiet desperation, hoping fervently for a miracle to shorten their time behind bars; only a few are involved in gainful activity. And they may be considered lucky, as this may be, for the moments that they are engaged in it, the times that they can let their creative souls take flight and be free.

Kitty Arambulo-Clinton is a human rights lawyer and a self-professed world citizen calling many parts of the world home; presently, that is Manila. A human rights lawyer by training, an international bureaucrat by profession, and a yoga teacher at heart, Kitty's greatest passions are her boys (Lucas and Daniel) and yoga. Everything else is a bonus, including husband Andy. Kitty is presently pursuing a Masters degree in Development Management at the Asian Institute of Management.

VOICE OF A COMMUNITY PARTNER

On a recent trip of the International Visitors Leadership Program, a US State Department project, women entrepreneurs Chit Juan and Gianida Lumanggal met and agreed to start a community project in Carmen, Cotabato. Meant to provide livelihood among senior women members of Gianida's community to preserve the age-old tradition of weaving buri (palm leaves) into baskets and other useful handicrafts, it has turned into an inspiring enterprise involving all the women who still know the craft of buri-weaving and passing on the tradition to the younger set, ensuring the continuance of the skills and art of the Moro women of Cotabato.

The women now have a livelihood and are able to buy daily necessities from their weaving activity, which was revived by Gianida's inspired entrepreneurship persuasion. We are proud to carry the buri bags made by Gianida's community.

Mentoring a Whole Community

By Chit Juan

I was very excited to spend three weeks with two Muslim women during a recent International Visitor Leadership Program grant to visit the US to learn more about "Women and Entrepreneurship." It was my first time to actually eat and sleep with their kind, with headgear (tandong) and prayers in between (Rima Hassan would excuse herself to pray at designated times of each day). I was excited just at the idea of learning. To learn about their culture, which is ours too as much as it is theirs, was a high point in my three-week journey.

I would as much as possible take the chance of having breakfast with Gianida Lumanggal and Rima to see what they eat, what their habits are, and what was different in the things we did every day. Call it bonding just like Sarah Jessica Parker with her friends, except without the carnal desires. As we were suffering from jet lag for a week, Gianida and I would have coffee (our rooms had espresso machines!) at 4 a.m. Washington DC time, and discuss the problems her community had and how we could best help them. These 4 a.m. sessions would slowly adjust to breakfast sessions and, for the next three weeks, would be our kapihan with the rest of the group: Aklan-born Rose Nepomuceno and Manila girl Dina Rodriguez.

(Left to right) Gianida Lumanggal, Chit Juan, and Rima Hassan

Before we parted ways, some leaving for relatives' homes in the US and some going straight home to Manila, we pledged to keep in touch and to visit each other no matter the distance from Makati to Davao or Basilan.

The next month was Ramadan, and the two Muslim ladies begged off from any business discussions. As soon as Ramadan ended, Gianida and I saw each other in Davao, where she brought samples upon samples of buri baskets, vine baskets, banana chips, and even coffee. My ECHOstore partners Reena and Jeannie critiqued her products and zeroed in on the buri baskets, rather than sell more banana chips which are aplenty in Manila.

Gianida rounded up the old women weavers of Kitulaan, Cotabato, and started what now is a microenterprise creating different containers (some for rice and some for squeezing coconut milk with, among others) and buri mats (banig). It would pull at your heartstrings to note that, while each bag or mat may take an hour or a few days to make, even P50 for a day's production makes a BIG difference to a woman who used to earn nothing. The women are mostly in their 50s, no longer physically strong to do heavy manual labor, but productive in crafts such as weaving, which they know by heart, having grown up in these parts where buri is a backyard palm tree and weaving can be done almost with their eyes closed.

Today, our mentoring sessions over coffee in Washington have turned a small community into a busy hive, each one weaving a product they know by heart. It pleases me to know that Gianida turned our mentoring sessions in entrepreneurship into a real microenterprise that now empowers ten women at a time, and soon the rest of their small town in Cotabato.

Gianida is a teacher by profession, but her humility made her my student even for just a few days, a few weeks in something she was not familiar with. I also am her student in the traditions of the Muslim way of life. Together we teach and we learn. The education I have gotten is priceless, perhaps even worth more than an MBA. And all it took was a friendship that was open, humble, and honest.

Mindanao Buri Containers

By Gianida Lumanggal
Kitulaan, Carmen, Cotabato

The women who made these buri containers are from the barangays of Galakit and Igam in the municipality of Pagalungan, Maguindanao. The other women are from Barongis, Pikit, Kitulaan, and Carmen in Cotabato. They are all over 50 years old and continue this craft for as long as they can still see. They depend on this craft to buy their daily necessities whilst preserving the traditions handed down by earlier generations. While the containers are made to primarily keep rice, it is actually a multipurpose vessel for storing knicknacks and many other things. It also makes for a nice gift basket during the holiday season.

Weaving buri is not so common anymore due to the availability of plastics, but we remain hopeful that, with your support, this age-old industry will come alive once more. Older women who know the craft will gain employment or livelihood as they teach the younger generation these traditional crafts.

THE POWER OF THREE

Me + Me

Trust your own innate knowing and the energy moving within you. Life speaks to you through your deepest longing, and guides you with every step. As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Goethe
Poet, novelist, playwright, and natural philosopher

You + Me
= We

Only when I saw the Earth from space, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility, did I realize that humankind's most urgent task is to cherish and preserve it for future generations.

Sigmund Jahn
German cosmonaut

We + Planet
= Sustainable Lifestyle

The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.

Gaylord Nelson
Former governor of Wisconsin and co-founder of Earth Day

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS

Community Trunk Mini Bazaar

The first pilot Community Trunk Mini Bazaar was launched last December 8, 9, and 10. PBSP GOES TO ECHOSTORE was a small mini bazaar that brought in the products of microcommunities from Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Cebu, Bohol, Davao Oriental, and South Cotabato.

PBSP is the largest corporate-led, nonprofit social development foundation in the Philippines. It is at the forefront in the fight against poverty through programs developed and implemented with the strategic commitment of more than 230 member-companies. Its membership consists of large, medium-scale, and small enterprises committed to the common goal of empowering the poor through the practice of corporate social responsibility. PBSP operates nationwide with programs in education, health and water, area resource management, and enterprise development. Working with partners and communities, PBSP's programs assist the poor towards self-reliance and improved quality of life.

Next year, we will host a number of community trunk mini bazaars by various organizations, allowing microcommunities from all over the country to sell their wares in Serendra.

EVENTS HUB

DLSU Advocacy class

Nov. 15

By Marie Grace Marci
Lecturer
De La Salle University (DLSU) Marketing Dept.

Its one thing to teach the theories of advocacy in the classroom, and another thing to surround them—literally—with real products, people, and stories with an advocacy or cause attached. Perhaps no other venue in town has that kind of setup, ready to accommodate an audience ready and eager to do something good for the community (if only someone, or something, would point the way).

Advocacy/public relations students from DLSU held a class at ECHOstore last November 15. The aroma of homegrown coffee on the perk surrounded the students as they discussed green issues. The guest speaker of the morning was BrandLab CEO Vicky Ortega, who gave a provocative talk on THE GREEN AGENDA and what green living implies to today's businesses today—not just an issue "out there" to be contended with, but a fundamental way of structuring business. Students were introduced to the concepts of global warming, carbon footprints, and sustainability.

For a month-long final project, students were divided into teams and asked to pick any brand from the shelves of ECHOstore and analyze their business, advocacy, and marketing models. This included going out into the real world and conversing with the benefactors and beneficiaries of their chosen brands. Real world learning towards making a real difference to real people started at ECHOstore!

Update: Jeannie Javelosa and Chit Juan were invited by DLSU to sit as panelists last December 15 to review the students' reports. The best case studies will be featured in the next issue of ECHOstore eView.

PRODUCT FEATURE

Something for everyone!
Home décor * gifts * fashion accessories * health and wellness * body, beauty, and nutritional products * food and beverages * environment-friendly products * books * music ... and so much more, all showing Filipino design ingenuity and creativity.

Coco nectar

Coco nectar was the focus of the ECHOstore wellness lecture by Dr. Gerry Macias (nuclear physicist, inventor, and metaphysicist) and Josef Frank Regis (life counselor, health management consultant, and metaphysicist). Here's what they had to say about the coco nectar at our store:

When we eat sources of protein (meat, fish, beans, etc.), the body does not really need the protein in the meat, but the AMINO ACIDS in the protein. The body uses 80% of our energy resources for digestion alone. All this energy, just to extract the amino acids and other nutrients the body needs. With coco nectar, digestion is no longer needed. As soon as taken, pure amino acids are immediately assimilated for distribution to the cells in every tissue and organ. Coco nectar is, thus, best taken on an empty stomach five to ten minutes before meals.

I have used this preparation for a number of cases I am handling (including myself and my wife) as an alternative healer with measurable, palpable results. One of my patients has stopped taking chemotherapy (for a serious blood ailment where the blood thickens and the white blood cells grow wild) and shifted to a coco nectar-based concoction which I prepared. In less than two months, the hematocrit count went down from 53 to 45, which is within the normal range, while the white blood cell count significantly dropped from 63,000 to 32,000/cu mm. This patient used to have 600 cc of blood taken out painfully every few months, and the nails had grown black from chemo. The patient's nails are now pink and back to normal color. At the very least, this product is a very powerful food supplement. No overdose. Very natural. Concentrated energy. Try it out for yourself, especially when you need extra energy or are feeling under the weather. It is good even for diabetics.

COMING UP

January lectures and seminars

We will launch our Lecture and Seminar Series starting January. We will send you more information through another e-mail, but here's what we have so far:

Understanding the Self

Are You My Angel?

Having It All With Your Angel

Understanding the Chakras In Relation to the New Consciousness

We're also finalizing lectures and seminars on the Green Movement, the Healing Powers of Aromatherapy, Personal and Environmental Wellness, Wellness for the Busy Executive, and more!!! Watch out for these events in a separate e-mail.

HOW TO HELP

Hold your seminar at ECHOstore

Our store space is open for use by groups and individuals who need space for lectures and workshops related to the sustainable lifestyle, or even just a social gathering.

Please e-mail Kate Carlos at klc.echolifestyle.store@gmail.com or call us at 901-3485 for more details and to block off your preferred schedule..

Buy ECHOstore gift certificates

Give GIFTS OF HOPE all year round with ECHOstore gift certificates.

PERFECT for people who have everything, people who love receiving gifts with meaning, people who understand what sharing means, people who love to buy their own gifts, and for people to give to others!

Visit our store at Serendra to purchase or ask about our gift certificates. Available in P500 denominations.

SIMPLE GREEN STEPS

Rearrange your furniture!

Arrange furniture to take in natural light from windows. Place desks and reading chairs next to windows to cut down on the need for supplemental, artificial light during the day.

From It's Easy Being Green by Crissy Trask

Subscriber Info

ECHOstore eView is the bimonthly e-mail newsletter of ECHOstore* Sustainable Lifestyle.
*ECHO: Environment & Community Hope Organization STORE

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ECHOstore shares space with Kape Isla, Home of Philippine Coffee
G/F Serendra Piazza
McKinley Parkway
Fort Bonifacio Global City, Taguig
Open 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
Tel: 901-3485

E-mail feedback on ECHOstore eView to Jeannie Javelosa at jej.echolifestyle.store@gmail.com.
E-mail inquiries about products to rsf.echolifestyle.store@gmail.com.

ECHOSTORE eVIEW

EDITOR  Jeannie Javelosa
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS  Kitty Arambulo-Clinton, Chit Juan, Gianida Lumanggal, and Marie Grace Marci
LAYOUT  Carla Martinez

IMAGE CREDITS