After months going after this idea, The Miniature Earth t-shirts are ready and finally available. This is the first time we go to the “real world” and we did that working with local communities down here in Brazil. The people behind it don’t belong to any big industry, but I can assure the quality and love that everyone involved have put into these t-shirts.

Check for photos and different models here:
http://www.miniature-earth.com/tshirts_official.html

I started this Blog in February, 10 - in two days we’re going to complete 2 months online and I already realized that I’m going to need some help, as you probably noticed my English is not good for writing a blog, and even if I try to post at least once a day its really difficult to be always up do date.

So please, if you are a person who care about social issues, know the latest on this subject and want to be part of this Blog, send an email to m.moraes@miniature-earth.com

The Miniature Earth blog is visited 30/40 times a day and its not a commercial website, so we’re not going to pay you for this. We want to increase the readers numbers of course so if you want to help, please get it touch!

Thanks for all those who have been donating for the Miniature Earth, I’m glad to let you know that we’re making t-shirts with sentences from the webvideo. All t-shirts are being sewing by a local group of people (will post some pictures later). I thought it was a good way to use the money from donations as we’re helping this group to work and probably envisioning the local economic growth.

There will be 4 different t-shirts:
Brown color, stamp in red: 8 north americans
Red color, stamp in white: 9 are disable
Creme color, stamp in blue: 14 Can’t read
Creme color, stamp in light green: The Miniature Earth logo

I still dont have the final price, will let you know as soon as possible. Will post some photos as well. Sizes will be L, M, P.

So, is fair trade good for the US or not? Despite some companies that see it as a problem this article from the Observer online, give us a good perspective about this subject.

“…In the United States, the poverty line is an annual salary of around $20,000 a year or less. In the rest of the world the impoverished are lucky to make $200 a year…”

Read the article

I know 2 different books that use the 100 people village idea to make it easy for us to understand the differences in the world we live. These publications can be very useful, specially for teachers.

If the World Were a Village - by David Smith
Gr. 3-5, younger for reading aloud. To make the idea of a world of 6.2 billion people more understandable, the book suggests that children imagine the population of the world as a village of just 100 people.

Very child oriented, with nice illustrations, a paperback version is available too.
Buy it from Amazon

if The World Were A Village Of 100 People (Paperback) - by Ikeda Kayoko
Another book, this one is based on the Miniature Earth project, the publication is available in Japanese. I’d say that its very child oriented too with good illustrations.
Buy it from Amazon

If you already watched a documentary about US detentions in Guantanamo, you probably know that happens only because the US is behind it, the rest of the world would not allow any other country to keep a prison like that one. Tearitdown.org is Amnesty International’s global initiative to end illegal US detentions.
“Each pixel - in the 500.000 pixel image depicting the issue - represents one individual’s power to end the lawlessness and the human rights violations in Guantanamo. By signing up, your commitment is visualized by one pixel being removed from the image.”

Every ONG should have something like this, a graphic that shows you what they can do based on the amount you donate.

The graphic above comes from the Millennium Promise website, an organization that aim to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
They are now operating in 80 villages across 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. If you want to contribute visit the donation page.

From WorldMapper: “The first Millennium Development Goal is to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who live on the equivalent of US$1 a day, or less. In 2002, an estimated 17% of the world population lived on this amount. They lived on less than or equal to what, to be precise, US$1.08 would have bought in the United States in 1993.

In over twenty territories more than a third of the population lives on less than US$1 a day. All but two of these territories are in Africa.

The largest population living on US$1 a day is in Southern Asia, most of whom live in India.”

A lot has been said about Monsanto, even documentaries are available. “The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won’t ever see” is a good example of that,  written by Siv O’Neall, its an article that gives us a good overview about the whole issue.

You can buy the movie here

Google has just launched a specific Non-Profit portal, you’ll find all tools available for free that can enhance communication, organization, promotion and more for Non-Profit organizations. Some services like Google CheckOut is only available for NGO’s in the USA, however they really encourage organizations for all over the world to make use of it.