The Meaningful Shop is an online shop dedicated to empowering people in developing countries and providing them with access to market that have been traditionally beyond their reach.
The Meaningful Shop is both a 100% non-profit organization and a 100% fair trade organization.
Fair Trade Craft
The Meaningful Shop currently supports craft groups in the Philippines and Uganda and will quickly expand to include further countries. Our Filipino craft group is called the Payawpao Orchids and our Uganda craft group is called Grassroots Uganda. We currently have about 100 ladies in this initiative and you can meet some of the ladies here.
Child Sponsorship
Almost all international child sponsorship programs are doing a terrible job. Almost all of the money from the "dollar-a-day" programs goes to bloated bureaucracies and excessive salaries while very little of the money goes to where it is needed most. At the Meaningful Shop, 90% of the money given goes directly to the children and 10% goes to cover expenses and pay the salaries of our staff on the ground.
We have no international central office and all our programs are staffed by local people in the community. Filipinos in the Philippines, Ugandans in Uganda and so on.
All the children that are eligible for sponsorship and part of the RYE School system. The RYE School system was developed by Meaningful Volunteer (see below) and puts world class educational resouces in the hands of international volunteers to teach students denied a basic education. The RYE School keeps detailed information about all our children.
Via link for example, you can :
- Meet Maria and her deaf mother and see simple hut that they call home.
- View the handover notes that past volunteers have left that ensure a smooth transition between volunteers.
- Meet her classmates
- See the lessons she has been taught
The RYE School initative keeps detailed lesson plans online so that future volunteers know what they will be teaching as well as keeping an accurate record of what each student has been taught. Click here and here for a couple of the lessons Maria has been taught.
- See her academic performance
The Meaningful Shop allows specific sponsorship options for specific needs. Sponsorhip options in the village of Sugod in the Philippines include:
- A Clothing Pack
Students in Sugod often only have one set of clothes and lack suitable footwear for the rugged mountainous terrian.
- School Lunches
Malnutrition is rife in Sugod and many of the children survive on little more than fish and rice. The School Lunch program brings malnourished kids in sponor family homes where they have a nutrious lunch.
- High School Fees
High School is technically fee in Sugod, but practically costs money in terms of school uniforms, school supplies, project fees, and "compulsory donations". These modest costs put high school beyond the reach of many Filipino families and their children.
Check out all the ways you can sponsor children here.
Local Workers
All across the world there are countless local volunteers. These are the people who do the tasks that their own governments are failing to do.
They include – for example – a young man in South Africa who saw too many school children getting killed by cars in his local neighborhood. He step an afternoon constructing a red stop sign from paper and cardboard and now spends his afternoons stopping traffic so that the children can cross safely.
There is also Nasubuga who is an old lady and runs a small school in Uganda. She gets no glory, no big pay check and hardly anybody outside of her neighborhood knows she exists. Many children, however, get an education because of her.
There are also the local BHWs (Barangay [village] health workers) in the Philippines. They fill much needed gaps in the health care system and receive no compensation. Meaningful Volunteer has worked extensively with them as part of a natural family program on the island of Tablas.
Each one of these people deserves compensation and none of them get in.
Options for sponsoring the community workers include:
- Chicken Farms
This options gives the community worker some baby chicks, chicken feed, and enough supplies to get a chicken farm going
- A Piggery
This is very similar to the chicken farms
- Food Pack
Try as they might, the comunnity workers never seem to have enough money to feed their family adequatly. The food pack give them enough food to adequatly feed their family for a month
Check out all the ways you can help the community workers here.
Projects
The Meaningful Shop is involved in many large scale projects. A notable example of this is the RYE School being constructed in the province of Romblon in the Philippines and its associated pico-hydro power system. It is hoped that the new RYE School building will be the first of many such schools around the world.
These projects are – of course – not cheap and require a lot of money.
Click here to see some of the projects we are constructing.
Volunteer With Us!
The Meaningful Shop is an initiative of Meaningful Volunteer - a 100% non-profit organization dedicated to empowering international volunteers to make a meaningful impact on developing communities. If you like the work we are doing and want to help in a meaningful way, then why not volunteer with us?