Archive for the category "FairMail"

Four Peruvian teenagers graduate from high school

Friday, January 30th, 2015
Diana, Jorge and Angeles with their high school certificates

Diana, Jorge and Angeles with their high school certificates

As you can read in FairMail’s second yearly social impact report, 2014 was a great year for most of our Peruvian FairMail (ex-) participants: half of the team graduated from high school! A big congratulations to Anidela (16), Angeles (17), Diana (16) and Jorge (18) for persevering in their high school years.

Angeles already graduated in the beginning of the year. Since then she is studying extremely hard at the private Kepler academy, preparing for the exam to enter the national university of Trujillo on the 15th of March. This is the hardest university to get into and her public high school level isn’t high enough so that is why she invests in this expensive academy. Her grades during the trial exams are very promising but as she says herself she shouldn’t become overconfident and relaxed. To be continued…

Jorge with his certificate

Jorge with his certificate

Jorge finished high school in June as he attended a weekend school aimed at people who need to combine their high school with work. Since then, besides attending FairMail, he has been working and orienting on his further education. This month he is enrolling to study as chef and as driver/mechanic of heavy vehicles. He hopes to combine working as a cook on the short term with finishing the heavy vehicles course on the long term. This would allow him to get a well-paid job in a construction company in one of the many new mines in Peru.

Diana with her certificate

Diana with her certificate

Diana just finished high school in December, in the same school as Angeles. Instead of taking well deserved summer holiday’s she went straight on taking summer courses. In March she will start a 5 year communication sciences study at the Cesar Vallejo private university in Trujillo.

Anidela also finished in December, in second place of her high school class. She is also skipping summer holidays to attend the preparatory academy for the Leonardo de Vinci private university in Trujillo. In March she will start to fulfill her long cherished dream of studying business administration at the university with the scholarship she earned.

New video FairMail photography trip

Friday, January 30th, 2015
FairMail Peru team on the photography trip into the Peruvian Andes

FairMail Peru team on the photography trip into the Peruvian Andes

In January the Peruvian FairMail teenagers set out on an unforgettable photography trip into the Peruvian Andes.

Accompanied by 4 foreign photography travelers and 2 volunteer photography trainers the group of 12 climbed up to 4.000 meters above sea level before descending again in the inter-Andean valley around Huamachuco, Peru. This proved to be the perfect base camp for excursions to nearby high altitude lakes, thermal hot springs, hikes to authentic Andean villages and pre-Inca ruins. The trip was the perfect mix between discovering off-the-beaten-track destinations, working hard on pictures for new FairMail cards and a lot of fun and laughter together. Check out the video we made of the trip to see for yourself:

Or click here for pictures of this great trip!

There are three more FairMail photography trips planned for the coming months. Including a breath taking trip into the Cordillera Blanca in the end of July where we climb up to a beautiful 4.600 meter high glacial lake together. To learn more about FairMail’s photography trips, click here.

FairMail photography trip to the Cordillera Blanca

FairMail photography trip to the Cordillera Blanca

Last chance to make your fair trade Christmas card online

Friday, December 5th, 2014
FairMail Christmas card by Aradhana (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Aradhana (16)

Only two more weeks until Christmas. You have to be quick if you still want to order FairMail’s fair trade Christmas cards or one of the other selected Christmas gifts from our webshop.

You have a bit more time to make your own printed FairMail Christmas card online. On the Greetz website you can select the FairMail Christmas image of your choice and design your own card with it and include a text. Greetz then takes care of printing your card and delivering it in time wherever in the world you want!

Check the online Christmas card collection here

FairMail Christmas card by Jorge (18)

FairMail Christmas card by Jorge (18)

FairMail Chirstmas card by Diana (16)

FairMail Chirstmas card by Diana (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

FairMail teenagers teach us about “Simple Happiness”

Friday, December 5th, 2014
Simple happiness on a bicycle

Simple happiness on a bicycle

Simple happiness with water

Simple happiness with water

From feedback on our cards we learned that the FairMail teenagers have an important life lesson to teach us all, through their perspective on the world:

More material wealth does not necessarily mean being more happy.

Many of our teenager’s images show children having a lot of fun playing with an old tire or a bucket of water, of people simply relaxing and enjoying a rest in the sun or taking time to chat with each other on the street.

Simple happiness relaxing in the sun

Simple happiness relaxing in the sun

These images show our customers in the west that having more material gadgets is less important for being happy than your perception on life, your ingenuity, having meaningful social relationships and a positive mind set.

In marketing terms you could say that this “Simple Happiness” is a unique selling point of our teenagers’ photography. So as FairMail is a social enterprise, totally dependent on the sales of our cards, we have decided to spend more attention making use of this natural strength of our teenagers and their surroundings to shoot images of “Simple Happiness”.

Anidela and Ruth making kites from trash

Anidela and Ruth making kites from trash

Time to see if the kites will fly

Time to see if the kites will fly

One such example was the kite workshop we organized in Peru a few months back. With leftover plastic garbage from the earlier “garbage art workshops” the teenagers made their own kites during class.

By being creative with the available resources and experimenting with designs and colour combinations some great kites were made.

During the next class they brought along their little sisters, brothers and neighbourhood friends to a kite flying photo shoot on the beach of Huanchaco, close to the FairMail office.

As the photos show it was a very fun day. Everybody enjoyed playing with the kites, dancing on the rhythm of the afternoon breeze until the sun went down. Sand, sun, beach, kites and friends were all the ingredients they needed. When it started getting cold we all headed back to the office for a nice cup of hot chocolate and looked back at a very productive (and low cost!) photo session.

Sun going down

Sun going down

Future FairMail card of simple happiness?

Future FairMail card of simple happiness?

We hope the first kite cards will become available on FairMail cards soon. Please stay tuned to our webshop for the newest cards.

FairMail featured on Belgian television

Friday, December 5th, 2014
Photoshooting with TV presenter Arne

Photoshooting with TV presenter Arne

In October FairMail was featured in five episodes of the Belgian children’s television program “Eerlijk Waar”. The four week series on the commercial VTM channel told the story behind 8 different fair trade products ranging from cacao to bananas and from oranges to flowers. Of course FairMail’s fair trade greeting cards couldn’t be left out!

The main star in the episodes about FairMail is 17 year old Yomira. Belgian TV presenter Arne runs into Yomira while looking for the beach chairs featured in the FairMail card he bought in Belgium. After explaining him about FairMail Yomira teaches Arne some lessons on photography and takes him on photography shoots in the area. Afterwards Arne wants to visit Yomira’s house and the garbage belt where she worked with her grandmother before she entered FairMail. This desolate places leaves a big impression on the presenter and only makes him more impressed about what Yomira has achieved so far.

Below you can view some of the episodes featuring FairMail in combination with a visit to a fair trade orange farm in Southern Africa.



Call for ideas: European tour with 2 Peruvian FairMail teenagers in 2015

Friday, December 5th, 2014
interview for German television

interview for German television

With a personal motivation letter and an interview (partly in English!) the Peruvian FairMail teenagers are trying to get selected for FairMail’s European promotional tour between the 17th and 30th of June 2015. Wow they are so excited, this will be the trip of their life! So far their imagination only goes as far as the excitement of sitting in an airplane for the first time.

The goal of their trip will be to conduct market research on “their” greeting card market and promote the unique story behind their photographs to as many people as possible in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

If you have a nice idea for the program of their visit, now is the time to let us know!

To get some inspiration here are some possible ideas:

Ready for the auction

Ready for the auction

* Organizing a photography exhibition or auction in a gallery you know.

* Visiting a local high school for a cultural exchange with European students of their age.

* Presenting themselves and FairMail to a group of fair trade volunteers.

* Giving a photography workshop.

* Meeting with a professional photographer.

* Selling their cards at a cool cultural or music festival.

* Giving interviews to journalists or for television.

* Present themselves to organisations that might want to purchase their photos in the future.

* Or any other thing you can think of that would help them understand their customers, how fair trade works in Europe or allows them to tell the story behind FairMail’s cards.

meeting clients

meeting clients

At this stage we appreciate any ideas you may have. Please feel free to send them to us by clicking here.

In the beginning of January we will make a selection of all the ideas and try to make a more definite program. We will be sure to keep you informed on how and where you can meet the FairMail teenagers in Europe!

Visiting selling points

Visiting selling points

meeting clients

meeting clients

Presenting FairMail

Presenting FairMail

interview for the newspaper

interview for the newspaper

Highs and lows of our teenage photographers

Thursday, December 4th, 2014
FairMail's teenage photographers

FairMail’s teenage photographers

The end of the year is naturally a period of introspection and looking back at the months that lay behind us. That is also what we asked our teenagers to do a few months back: to tell us what their highs and lows were the past six months. And their goals for the months to come.

You can read their answers on their personal profile pages of the FairMail website. We also uploaded new personal profile videos, added a link to their Facebook account, updated their career earnings and uploaded their newest photos for you to vote on.

This is your chance to meet the young and talented photographers behind your favorite greeting cards! Click here to read their stories.

Personalize your own fair trade Christmas card online

Wednesday, October 29th, 2014
FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

At FairMail we like to make things easy. Especially for the people who send our beautiful cards while supporting our teenage photographers.

That’s why, in partnership with Greetz, you can now choose from 15 new FairMail pictures to personalize your own fair trade Christmas cards. Greetz takes care of the printing and sending out your card in time.

Just like with an ordinary FairMail card you and the receiver of the card can see the picture, name, age and email of the FairMail teenager who took the picture and who gets to invest 50% of the profit into his or her education. Click here to view the new Christmas card collection. (click on nieuw at the top to see the newest cards)

FairMail Christmas card by Aradhana (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Aradhana (16)

Besides the new FairMail collection on Greetz we also have 14 new printed Christmas cards and 4 new boxed Christmas sets on offer in our webshop. As this week is fair trade week we are offering 20% discount on all the cards in our webshop. Simply enter the discount code “FTW2014” at the end of your order. Click here to go to our webshop.

Below you can enjoy a few of the great new Christmas cards available on Greetz.

FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Anidela (16)

FairMail Chirstmas card by Diana (16)

FairMail Chirstmas card by Diana (16)

FairMail Christmas card by Jorge (18)

FairMail Christmas card by Jorge (18)

Mariaflor wins prize for best student

Wednesday, October 29th, 2014
Mariaflor (r) after the ceremony with her friend Cinthia

Mariaflor (r) after the ceremony with her friend Cinthia

We are very proud of the fact that FairMail Peru photographer Mariaflor was awarded with the prize for being the best student of her faculty over the past semester. As special as this news sounds, it is actually already the third time that Mariaflor, who is 23 years old by now, managed to achieve this!

With her hard work when she was still taking pictures for FairMail she already earned 7.379 euro. Money which she is investing to study communication sciences at the Cesar Vallejo private university in Trujillo. With her first prize she won a scholarship which means she has to pay only 45 euro per month instead of 110 euro. A discount that is more than welcome to allow Mariaflor to have enough funds to finish her career at the expensive private university. Her mother was present during the award ceremony at the university. According to Mariaflor, her mother says she is proud to have a daughter like Mariaflor. And we are very proud to have a FairMail teenager like her!

It comes as no surprise that Mariaflor works very hard to achieve this incredible result. She understand and fully makes use of this chance to get ahead in life. Therefor she spends an average of more than 50 hours per week on her study.

Can you believe she even manages to combine all that hard work with her part-time job as co-manager of FairMail Peru? She doesn’t make a big deal of this herself. She just points out the unique opportunity she is grasping to be able to practice what she learns at university, while getting paid job experience at the same time.

Her next goal is to specialize her career abroad as this increases opportunities for finding a job afterwards. If anybody has an idea for an organisation where Mariaflor can do her practical period abroad, please let us know. They won’t regret working with a smart and ambitious girl like Mariaflor!

We have a lot of faith that Mariaflor will achieve this and are very grateful to have such a lighting example for the new generation of FairMail teenagers in our Peruvian team!

If you want you can send Mariaflor an email here.

Fair trade gift tips for the holiday season

Wednesday, October 29th, 2014

With Christmas coming up we selected the perfect fair trade gifts for your loved ones.

Yoga Calendar 2016

Yoga Calendar 2016

Gift tip 1: Yoga calendar

The 2016 Children’s Yoga Calendar contains 8 yoga pictures taken by the FairMail teenagers from Peru and India. They worked hard with young models from their neighborhoods to get these great results!

This is a great gift for anyone who is into yoga or mediation and who you want to inspire next year with a new pose every month!

At 17,50 euro this is a great present for you and for the world!

Click here to order now in our webshop. 100% of the profit goes to different children’s charities, including the FairMail teenagers personal education funds.

Gift tip 2: FairMail picture on the wall

FairMail canvas

FairMail canvas

Did you know that you can order any of the teenager’s pictures on the FairMail website to hang on the wall? Just pick the photo of your choice and we will print it on canvas in a wooden frame.

This is a great gift to decorate someone’s new home, office space or to decorate your own room with an inspiring picture!

You can choose from 3 different sizes: Small (20×30 cm), Medium (40×60 cm) and Large (60x90cm) starting at 34,95 euro.

Click here to find the picture for your canvas painting! Just like our cards, 50% of the profit FairMail makes goes directly into the personal education fund of the teenager who took the picture.