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See Jane Advocate bio picture

Welcome to See Jane Advocate

Having babies doesn't mean you stopped caring about the world...It just means you need quicker, easier and cheaper ways to do it! This blog exists to help busy moms impact the world by providing quick, accessible, attainable methods of advocacy that you can do in just a few minutes a day. 

I hope you find some ideas to inspire you! Thanks for visiting!

Stamp Out Hunger

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Hunger is such an overwhelming issue that often times we try to either ignore it or at least only acknowledge it in far away places and extremely foreign places like Somlia and Ehtiopia.

But the fact is that there are an crazy number of people in our own country that are also dealing with hunger and most of them are children.

I truly appreciate the work of shelters and food banks for providing privately funded food resources to those in need but every time I decide I want to donate food, I get too busy, or forget, or it sits on my to-do list FOR-EV-ER until the food I meant to donate has expired.

So, welcome to the easiest food drive EVER.

Stamp Out Hunger is the largest single day food drive in the country. This is it’s 20th year and they are hoping to collect at least 70 million pounds of food to match the last 8 year’s donations. The National Association of Letter Carriers has partners with the USPS, Feed America and Campbell’s Soup to put this thing together and DAMN if they have not made is easy.

It’s THIS Saturday May 12, 2012 and all you have to do is put a bag of non-perishable food items out by your mailbox for your letter carrier (think canned or boxed…pasta, rice, cereal, canned veggies, soup, juice, etc).

Seriously. That’s it. You probably already have enough surplus food in your pantry to make a donation!!! SO freakin’ easy.

Quick…Go put it on your calendar before you forget.

Oh, and PS…This is also a great opportunity to teach your kids about poverty and hunger. Explain the problem gently in words they understand, then empower them to do something about it! Let your kids raid your pantry and pack the bag with you, or take a special shopping trip to the grocery store and let your kids decide what you buy to give away. Sheesh…talk about a win/win/win situation, right?

Posted in Involve Your Kids, Practical Ways to Make an Impact

by Courtney Christenson

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Only fair trade Jewelry

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

I’ve had an idea for a while that I’ve been hesitating to do simply out of selfishness.

The idea came to me about about a year and half ago while making my first Christmas gift guide. I was searching for fair trade gift ideas for men and all I was finding was jewelery, jewelry and more jewelry. In frustration I exclaimed (to no-one in particular): “Why would anyone ever buy slave-tainted jewelry when affordable, fairly traded jewelery that rebuilds communities in developing countries is so readily available?”

I felt like I should do something about that, but when I thought about all the adorable, crazy cheap jewelery that I love from Forever21 and Nordstrom Rack I decided I just wasn’t willing to give that up.

Yeah. I’m THAT awesome…I didn’t want to sacrifice my access to hoards of bad quality jewelery that is a completely unnecessary part of my life in order to support awesome organizations that help to rebuild lives. WOW, Court.

Well, I’ve finally decided to get over myself. Here it is…my new commitment: From now on I will only ever buy myself jewelery that is fairly traded or that is made and sold for the purpose of building up impoverished communities.

I desperately want to add a timeline onto this (like “for 1 year”) and may have typed one and deleted it several times before publishing this. But the fact is that this is probably the world’s smallest, vainest sacrifice ever made and that’s not going to change because jewelry is never going to become a necessity.

In the name of research, I looked up a couple of companies in hopes of finding some really awesome pieces that are more modern/trendy and less beaded/tribal looking (which is fine and lovely…just not totally my thing) and I now have two new obsessions:

1. MADE – I highlighted these guys in my Christmas post, but I’ve rediscovered them and I want everything on their whole site. Seriously.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. PeopleTree – Look for a full post about this company coming soon. They are ridiculously awesome. But I love their jewelry, love their clothes, love it all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only problem with both these companies is that they are UK based, which means that despite their shockingly reasonable prices, the exchange rate and shipping costs do start to add up. Even an £8 bracelet turns into a $30 purchase when everything is said and done, which isn’t CRAZY expensive, but it’s also not cheap. So I guess I’m buying less (which, honestly, is probably a good thing)….Or staying up REALLY late the next few nights looking for companies just like these only State-side so I can pay for stuff in dollars and don’t have to pay so much in shipping.

If anyone wants to join me I’d love to swap sites and organizations!

Posted in Practical Ways to Make an Impact, Shopping for a Cause

by Courtney Christenson

4 comments

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Apple + Conflict-Free Minerals from Congo

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Enough Project fights to end genocide and crimes against humanity with a particular focus on Africa. One of their primary areas of concern is Congo…home of the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Nearly SIX MILLION (6,000,000,000) people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in the last 15 years. Congo’s conflicts are complex and there is no simple fix for peace but the ongoing violence is largely fueled by the illicit trade in conflict minerals (gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum) that are used by electronics companies and are found in abundance in Congo. Armed groups use rape as a weapon of war, destabilizing communities while procuring hundreds of millions of dollars per year off the minerals trade.

The Enough Project has recognized that where Apple goes, the world market will follow. So they are petitioning Apple to lead towards the most ethical stance possible when dealing with conflict minerals.

Apple has taken some good steps: They are doing everything possible to trace and identify the suppliers that smelt the minerals (a key step in the supply chain) and they recently required their suppliers to purchase certified conflict-free minerals when they are available on the world market.

There are 2 steps we believe Apple should take next:

1. Ensure that its conflict-free products are not also “Congo-free”. By ensuring that the minerals are still sourced in Congo, it will break the cycle of slavery by creating demand for ethically mined minerals from the Congo. This ethical sourcing in the Congo is a step that Motorola Solutions, Intel, and HP have already taken.

2. Help governments, industry and civil society create a credible certification system so that all companies can source responsibly from eastern Congo.

By taking these steps, Apple would help stop a war in Africa (instead of funding warlords) while also satisfying growing consumer demand that they contribute towards a solution for sustainable peace in eastern Congo.

Join us in asking Apple to push for even greater reform and accountability. We know that if they improve their performance other companies will soon follow their example: SIGN THE PETITION

Posted in Advocacy, Learn

by Courtney Christenson

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Donate Your Dinner Out

Saturday, February 25, 2012

I don’t know if your family is like ours, but we have a certain meal during the week that we always go out for. In our case it’s Sunday lunch. I just really feel like it should be a day off (especially since we work a lot of Saturdays) so I generally refuse to cook.

Well, the World Food Programme has discovered that this is a pretty normal thing, so they very smartly decided to capitalize on it. With their program called We Feed Back, they are asking individuals and families to “share” their meal out by donating the amount of money they would’ve spent on that meal to feed hungry children instead.

Here’s how it works: They have you put what kind of meal you’re going to “share” and how much it costs into their handy-dandy calculator which then tells you how many children you could feed with your meal. Turns out our delicious Lahaina Pizza from Pizza Port for $15.75 will feed 63 children.

SIXTY-THREE.

So instead of eating our pizza this weekend, we’ll be packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and taking them down to the beach for a picnic. Which also creates AWESOME opportunity to talk to my kids about how much they have and how we can share some of our blessings with those who have less.

So…How many kids did you feed? And what did you do instead of going out?

Posted in Involve Your Kids, Practical Ways to Make an Impact

by Courtney Christenson

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Chainstore reaction

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

I found it. The world’s easiest way to become an abolitionist.

Chain Store Reaction is a website dedicated to making it easy for consumers to advocate for slave-free supply chains in large corporations. They’ve done all the leg work and made it impossibly easy to ask companies to discover and eliminate any forced labor in their supply chain and then DO something about it.

They have a ginormous list of companies along with pre-drafted letters (that automatically address themselves to the proper people) demanding SLAVE FREE production of their products. All you do is click on a company, sign your name to the letter and hit send. It LITERALLY takes 10 seconds.

I’m gonna ask you to send 10 (if you can, choose the brands you use most often). That’s less than TWO MINUTES. You have two minutes, right? If I have two minutes, you have two minutes. Go be an abolitionist: Chain Store Reaction

 

Posted in Advocacy

by Courtney Christenson

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Christmas traditions that change the World

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Since the idea of finding ways to make a global difference in your daily life is one of my biggest life principals, it makes sense to me to incorporate those values into our Christmas celebrations. So I wanted to share a few ideas for how to do that.

1. Stocking stuffers of cash to be spent on an online relief gift catalog

This has become one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Two years ago we started replacing stocking stuffers for our families with envelopes of $15 cash to be spent together on the Samaritan’s Purse Gift Catalog or World Relief’s Catalog of Hope. So on Christmas day, in that lull between gifts and lunch, we all get online and everyone spends their $15 (PS. You can do SO much for $15! Did you know you can feed a hungry baby for a WEEK for $9???). It’s a win-win for us because it gives us an activity to do and it’s crazy awesome to see the difference that our Christmas celebration makes for people in developing countries.

2. Make or Give an Operation Christmas Child Online Shoebox

If you aren’t familiar with Operation Christmas Child, I would strongly encourage you to check it out. You can now make and send a shoebox gift online for $35 or pay for a box and send it to someone else to let them fill it and send it. This would be a great way for a family to do something awesome together on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Elementary aged kids would probably get especially excited to put this box together on the website (they can even upload a photo of themselves and write a note for the receiving child!). I also love this as a gift for families who don’t live near you.

3. Buy just ONE gift that makes a difference

I know it’s late for gifts, but just ONE gift that makes a difference can change someone’s life in a developing country. Here are couple of my favorites that are pretty mainstream so you don’t have to worry about shipping in time for Christmas:

FEED Bags. Fabulous bags (I use mine as a diaper bag!) that provide food, vitamins and other essentials for children in developing countries. You can find them at Whole Foods, Nordstrom, Gap and tons of other retailers.

TOMS (both the shoes and their new eyewear). Since they are super hip these days, they’re pretty easy to find! Here’s where you can find a retailer for their eyewear or a retailer for their footwear. They also offer gift cards!

West Elm has a whole line of products called Handmade in Haiti that are made by Haitian artisans attempting to rebuild their life after the earthquake. The products are RAD and support a great cause. Here’s where you can find the nearest store.

4. Send a Christmas card to your sponsor child (and if you don’t have one, get one!)

This idea started last year when Abreham, our sponsor child in Ethiopia,  sent us a Christmas card with a drawing of an Ethiopian Christmas tree and it looked nothing like ours. Joelle (my oldest) was intrigued, so we sent him a card with a drawing of OUR Christmas tree…and it has now become a tradition. It’s been a great way to get my kiddo involved in something meaningful that is also fun for her (even if she wouldn’t show her face for the photos)! If you don’t yet have a sponsor child, it’s really one of the best things that we’ve done and I would encourage you to find a child to sponsor. We go through Food for the Hungry because we got to see their amazing work first hand in Ethiopia a few years ago, but you could also go through Compassion International or several other great organizations.

Ok, so these things might not change the WHOLE world. I do realize that. But they will deeply effect the life of at least one person in need and at least one person close to you (you, your child, your family, your friends). Establishing globally minded traditions for your families will instill these values in your children and also give your friends and family a meaningful and interactive way to celebrate this Christmas. And who knows? Maybe you’ll inspire them to make a difference for someone else. The point is: Do what you can. Even if it’s a little thing, it can make a big difference to someone else.

I hope these things inspire you to find meaningful traditions that will work for YOUR family. Please let me know if you have any questions! And if you have any ideas to add to this list please share them with us in the comments!!! I hope you all have a very merry and blessed Christmas! Thanks for letting me be here!

Posted in Involve Your Kids, Practical Ways to Make an Impact, Shopping for a Cause

by Courtney Christenson

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One fair trade gift

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Hello Friends!

I must make a very humble apology for my lack of posts over the last month (or more! Ack!). I’m hoping that you will all understand that there are times in life when things are just too crazy and you have to ruthlessly cut stuff out of your life for a bit…even if you love it. The last two months have been chaos in our household and I really feel like I just barely survived. But I did, and now I’m back. After making some adjustments that needed making, sorting out the necessary from the unncessary, and getting through what was just a ridiculously busy time, I feel like the balance is beginning to be restored.

And just in time for the Christmas season!

I generally really love blogging during this time because there are so many awesome ways to support human rights and opportunities to spend money you were already going to spend in a way that makes a difference…which is what this post is about.

My wonderful mother (who is one of the hugest blessings in my life) sent me this video and it really struck me. It’s basic point is that we often think carefully about how we’re going to spend the 10% of our money that we set aside for tithing or charitable giving, and then fail to thoughtfully spend the other 90% of our money in a way that makes a difference.  This Christmas Americans are expected to spend $450,000,000,000. What if you spent your share in that in ways that made a difference? What if we re-thought how we spent the other 90% of our money the rest of the year? What if we purposefully bought “need” items that make a positive impact? Check it out:

I love that last statistic that says if every person that attends church in the US purchased just ONE fairly traded gift this year we could provide a years worth of work for ONE MILLION people. That’s just nuts (in a good way).

I realize that buying fair trade for every gift this year is probably not realistic…but ONE? You can do ONE. And for the other gifts, look into purchasing from companies who make a difference. Here’s a just a few of my favorite fair trade and globally conscious companies/websites.

Merry Christmas everyone!

1) Better World Books: I just bought my girls some books for Christmas and instead of hopping on Amazon I searched through Better World Books. The books are gently used so it’s eco friendly and cost effective (read: Cheap), AND to top it off they don’t charge for shipping. Yes, you read that right…FREE shipping. And they have everything! For more reasons why you should buy people books for Christmas, you can read my previous post about Better World Books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Seven Hopes United: Really and truly beautiful, modern looking fair trade products. I particularly love their Kitchen section. They have gorgeous table linens and glassware, that honestly do not look like you got them at a craft fair (because, let’s be honest…most fair trade stuff looks that way)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Made: It’s UK based, and they have GORGEOUS jewelry and accessories. The most beautiful fairly traded jewelry I’ve seen…with not a tribal bead to be seen! Not that there’s anything wrong with tribal beads, but those are pretty easy to find and this kind of stuff isn’t. Do keep the exchange rate in mind, though…It’s about $1.50 to every pound. Here’s an exchange rate calculator for your shopping needs.

Posted in Shopping for a Cause

by Courtney Christenson

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Share Your Meals with FEED on World Hunger Day

Saturday, October 15, 2011

 

Today, October 16, 2011, is World Hunger Day. The problem of hunger is worldwide and it’s effects are devastating. More people die from hunger related problems than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. And every six seconds a child dies from hunger related causes. This is a day to recognize that 1 BILLION people are hungry (that’s more people that the populations of the USA, Canada and the European Union…COMBINED). That 40,000 of those hungry people are children. That we are not hungry. And that we have an abundance with which we could feed some of those hungry people.

I’ve talked about The FEED Foundation once before, but they are doing a couple of super awesome things in honor of World Hunger Day that I would encourage you to be a part of.

In order to help people recognize their own abundance and the potential difference they could make to hungry people worldwide, The FEED Foundation is encouraging people to track their food for a day and do two things:

1) Take a picture of your food/coffee/groceries/whatever and post the photos and the cost of each meal on FEED’s facebook wall. For every photo posted, they will donate a meal in your name.

2) Donate the cost of the meal to the FEED Africa Emergency Fund to provide aid to the people in Africa affected by the famine. (They also have a 1:1 matching donation program going on right now, so your donation will be doubled!)

This is a quick, easy and (if you just post a photo on facebook) FREE way to end someone’s hunger.

If you can’t afford to donate the cost of the meal, I would strongly encourage you to skip a meal and donate the cost of it to someone who has already skipped MANY meals. Or…maybe just skip your latte and donate the cost of that? The cost of a $4 latte could provide SIXTEEN school meals to kids in Ethiopia. That’s SIXTEEN kids who would not be hungry for a day. Because of you. And that’s a REAL difference to those sixteen kids.

 

Posted in Practical Ways to Make an Impact

by Courtney Christenson

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Slavery footprint

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

K…I’m, like, SO excited about this. I’m not sure how I found it, but it’s called Slavery Footprint and it’s basically a quiz that tells you how many slaves are working on your behalf. It’s based on a bunch of info they collect about your lifestyle and it’s obviously all approximate, but it gives you a good idea of how crappy the supply chains of major industries are and what impact your every day life has on the world. It really brings this issue home!

I like to think that my husband and I are fairly mindful of this concept, and we try to make purchases that reflect that, but between me and my two girls we still have 44 slaves working for us. Blerg. Turns out it’s mostly due to my clothes, diapers, and our electronic devices…And two out of the three of those things aren’t super necessary. Double Blerg.

Now, I don’t mean to be a downer (which I do realize this blog can often be) so I’m going to give you a way to change that number RIGHT NOW.

I realize that completely turning your world upside down to make sure that you never use a slave-tainted product is not realistic. And telling you should do that is non of the things this blog aspires to be (affordable, attainable and practical). But the idea of never using a slave-tainted product is a worthwhile goal…at least conceptually.

It is my belief that it should not be my job as a consumer to avoid purchasing slave-tainted products…it should be the industry’s job to be sure they are not producing slave tainted products. Now…I’m not saying you shouldn’t avoid products produced by slaves whenever possible (you should…sometimes it’s not that hard!)…but I am saying that we should confront the greater problem:  Corporations should be made responsible for maintaining a slave-free supply chain.

But HOW do we do that? So glad you asked! (You DID ask, right?) Welp, it’s REAL easy.

1) Go to Slavery Footprint and take the quiz. Figure out your footprint and see the impact your lifestyle is having on other PEOPLE around the world (those are PEOPLE!!!!)

2) As soon as you’re done with your quiz, the website gives you a chance to send letters to a TON of various companies asking them to evaluate their supply chain and take whatever steps necessary to make sure it’s slave-free. Just click on “Send Letter” on the right, choose a company, fill in the REALLY simple form and hit “Send”. EASY. Do me a solid and send at least three…it’ll take you like 2 minutes…MAX.

Ready, set, go.

Posted in Advocacy

by Courtney Christenson

8 comments

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Advocate on behalf of Iranian pastor

Thursday, September 29, 2011

TIME SENSITIVE POST!!!!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about protecting persecuted religious minorities who were seeking refuge in the US…particularly those from Iran. This post is along those same lines, but with the opportunity to save one man who is being persecuted because of his religion.

It was brought to my attention this morning that a Christian pastor, and husband and father of two, in Iran named Yousef Nadarkhani faces potential execution this week simply because he refuses to recant his Christan faith and return to Islam. You can read the whole story in the Washington Post article that was published yesterday. Here are the basic facts:

Pastor Nadarkhani faces execution solely because he adopted the Christian faith. According to Sharia law (traditional Islamic law) a person who converts to a religion outside of Islam gets three chances to recant their faith and if they still refuse to do so they are subject to execution. Yousef has had two opportunities and was expected to receive his third yesterday, September 28. Once it does, if his still refuses to recant his faith, he could be executed at any time.

Iran claims to be a tolerant government. Their constitution sanctions Christianity as a legitimate minority faith and asserts that Christians are allowed to freely carry out their religious rites. Article 23 asserts that no one may be “reprimanded simply because of having a certain belief”. Iran is also violating its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which includes a provision for the right to “have or to adopt” a religion.

Clearly their actions are not supporting these claims, obligations and statements.

Although there is technically no right of appeal, we are all hoping that the outrage expressed by the international community will convince the Iranian government to stay his execution.

Please raise your voice with me and urge the Iranian government to spare Yousef Nadarkhani’s life, and grant him a full and unconditional release. The court is expected to reach a decision by the end of next week at the latest, so please do not delay!

I have attempted to make this as easy as possible. Turns out that the Iranian government is difficult to get a hold of (is anyone surprised?). The best way that I found to get your message through is on Christian Solidarity Worldwide. It’s a little confusing, but currently they are the only organization (that I could find anyways) with an advocacy avenue open for Pastor Yousef.

So, hit up their campaign page for Yousef Nadarkhani. They don’t have a message drafted, so I wrote one for you. You have to first enter your name and basic info (which will be added to the bottom of your message). Then click “Send Email” at the bottom of the page, and THEN it will give you a field where you can paste the actual message and send it (confusing, yes.)

Here’s the letter for you to copy and paste: (feel free to make tweaks to it if you would like)

To Your Excellency, the Ambassador of Iran,

Thank you in advance for passing my message of concern along to your government.

I am writing to express my deep distress regarding recent reports that Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani will be sentenced to death for his Christian beliefs. The Iranian government claims to promote tolerance, and your own constitution states that Christianity is a sanctioned religious minority and Article 23 asserts that no one may be “reprimanded simply because of having a certain belief”. I urge you to reconsider this course of action, spare Yousef Nadarkhani’s life, and grant him a full and unconditional release.

Please pass this message along to the governing body in Iran as a matter of urgency.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Posted in Advocacy

by Courtney Christenson

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