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Posts Tagged ‘education’

FairMail teenagers teach us about “Simple Happiness”

Friday, December 5th, 2014

Simple happiness on a bicycle

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

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

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

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.

Tags: card collection, education, photography, simple happiness, stock photography
Posted in FairMail, India, Peru | No Comments »

Mariaflor wins prize for best student

Wednesday, October 29th, 2014

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.

Tags: education, impact, maria_flor, Peru, results, social impact, teenagers
Posted in FairMail, Peru | No Comments »

Turning garbage into school fees

Sunday, July 6th, 2014

FairMail Peru team during beach clean-up

The great thing about FairMail is that it allows our teenagers to transform the free resource of local beauty into money to pay for their own education. During four “Garbage Art” workshops we went one step further, transforming garbage collected during clean-ups into large scale works of art. Some pictures of the art work will be available on new FairMail cards soon.

The workshops were inspired by the Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and his Waste Land project at Brazil’s largest garbage dump on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. After seeing his work the FairMail teenagers in Peru and India developed their own ideas for huge works of art made from garbage.

FairMail India team collecting garbage

To make the garbage art suitable for FairMail cards we gave it a little FairMail twist, using greeting card themes like “Good trip”, “Freedom”, “Thank you” and “Get well soon”. With the whole team we headed out into the Nagwa slum and along Huanchaco’s polluted beach to collect garbage in the necessary colours to actually make the art work.

Below you can see the end result and “Making of” time lapse videos of the four groups of FairMail teenagers: “Los 5 artistas”, “The photo Ninja’s”, “los Wheels” and “Los Genios”.

Thanks to FairMail volunteers Julian, Jessica, Michael and Samantha who organized and helped out during the workshops.

Los 5 artistas (FairMail India):

Los Wheels (FairMail Peru):

The Photo Ninja’s (FairMail India)

Tags: art, education, environment, garbage, teenagers
Posted in FairMail, India, Peru | No Comments »

FairMail’s first social impact measurement

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

FairMail was set up in 2006 to bring photos with an original perspective into the market but – more importantly – to accomplish our social mission:

“to give at-risk teenagers the opportunity to create a better future for themselves”.

But how much impact did we create in our seven years of operation? And what did the teenagers accomplish with their earnings?

“Earning while learning”

In 2013 the 50 teenage photographers earned 20.530 euro to invest in their own education, their families’ housing and medical care. The top earners in Peru and India were Yomira and Sandhya with 1.419 and 1.801 euro respectively. Yeah girl power! In second place came Elmer and Dhiraj with 1.226 and 1.306 euro each.

FairMail dropout rate is much lower than national average

Anshu in school uniform

These earnings are crucial for the teenagers to be able to fulfill their dreamed future plans. But money alone is no guarantee as success also depends on their perseverance, family situation and motivation for FairMail.

Due to a mix of these reasons, 20% of the teenagers who started FairMail did not make it to the retirement age of 19 years old. These 10 teenagers either lost motivation along the way, were drawn back into problems by “old friends” or faced such big personal problems that they could not continue with FairMail.

86% of all the kids that started FairMail either finished or are still in secondary school. Not bad considering the background of the teenagers FairMail works with. Also if you compare the percentage to the national average of 52% of all Indian teenagers that makes it to tenth grade (or 65% of all children in Peru finishing high school).

87% of FairMail teenagers continue learning after finishing high school

Yuli in front of her university

Of those FairMail teenagers who finished high school during their time with FairMail 40% has continued on to (pre-) university. 47% of them have continued with a vocational training.

Only 13% decided not to continue studying at all after finishing high school. This either due to not finishing high school in the first place or because they didn’t have enough earnings in their funds after finishing FairMail.

78% of “retired” FairMail teenagers have broken the chain of poverty

Akaash invested his earnings in his bike repair shop

At this moment 68% of the FairMail teenagers are still studying something. Of those not studying anymore 55% has a decent job (varying from tourism to construction to sales). 23% has his or her own business or is self-employed (varying from producing soccer balls to photography to mechanic). This way they have broken the chain of poverty and can start building a family that will provide much better opportunities for their children then the families where they grew up in. (8% of the ex-FairMail teenagers already have kids of their own!)

Not all is success though. Still 22% is either unemployed or has a marginalized or an unstable job (varying from carrying groceries on the market to being in jail). 4 out of 5 teenagers who are in this situation happen to be teenagers that didn’t finish the FairMail program until the age of 19. This only shows the importance of FairMail’s long term approach and guidance.

Cinthia graduating

Tags: Dhiraj, education, elmer, impact, results, sandhya, social impact, yomira
Posted in FairMail | No Comments »

The long road to get into an Indian university

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

FairMail India photographer Sandhya preparing for her exams

The Indian FairMail teenagers are currently in the most important weeks of their school year: exam time. Especially for those in 10^th grade the exams are very important as their scores are decisive for being admitted into the university of their choice after 12^th grade. To an outsider the university admission system in India seems nearly impossible due to factors like the caste system, the amount of students and the pressure to succeed.

A chance of 1 in 1.000 to get in

In a country of 1.27 billion inhabitants (!) where more than half of the population is under 25 years old, just imagine the amount of students trying to get into university each year. Actually there are 20 million higher education enrolments per year in India. There simply aren’t enough seats to meet the educational demand. For one certain medical university there are more than 80.000 candidates for only 70 vacancies.

The lower your caste, the less intelligent you need to be to get in

Even though the caste system is officially abolished in India a significant number of seats are reserved for students from lower castes. Sometimes up to 50%. This entails that in the case that two FairMail teenagers (coming from similarly poor families) apply to enter medical school the FairMail teenager from higher caste needs to get higher marks to get in than his or her colleague from a lower caste.

Three of the FairMail teenagers with their tutor

Private tuition is the norm, even if you go to an expensive private school

Even though the oldest FairMail teenagers can now afford a more expensive private school they still need to spend time and money on private tuition after classes. Private tuition is the norm, even if you go to the most expensive private schools.

Pressure to succeed leads to high suicide rate

All the factors above lead, amongst others, to suicide being the second-leading cause of death in the 15-29 age group in India. One Indian sociologist explains that “A civilisation which was not very familiar with symbols of wealth and celebrated simplicity in lifestyle became, in the course of a generation, obsessed with upward mobility. This led to the cult of success which puts big pressure on Indian students wanting to get ahead in life.” That is why we discuss plan B with our students in case their dreams turn out too high fetched.

FairMail India photographer Kaushal preparing for his exams

Do yo have any good wishes for the teenagers during their exams?

Please leave them here below and we will be sure to pass them on to them in time!

Tags: education, teenagers
Posted in FairMail, India | No Comments »

FairMail India photographer Anil Rao back in school

Sunday, September 15th, 2013

FairMail India photographer Anil Rao

I am Anil Rao from an old Indian city called Varanasi. I am 16 years old. I have a part time job as a photographer in fair trade card company called FairMail which gives me 50% of the profit of the cards printed with pictures taken by me. This money I only can spend on my educational and housing needs.

In India the government schools are made for the poor students. But these schools don’t teach so nicely and the student has to work hard if he has studied at these schools and wants to go for higher studies. With the financial conditions of my family I could only afford to go to the government schools where the condition for studying is not so good. The only way to get good conditions for studying is to get admission in private English school which asks for high fees every month. This amount couldn’t be afforded by my family. After getting a part time job in FairMail I earned the amount of money which was sufficient for me to pay the fees of a good private school.

Anil and his family

When I initially went in to my new school (which was private) I was the only guy who had weak financial conditions in his family. I was so uncomfortable to go to school because I didn’t have so many nice friends. It was hard for me to convince my mind to go to school. Regularly I was suspended from FairMail for one month for not going to school. But slowly I made nice friends and started going to school every day. And as a result I got good marks in my recent exams. And slowly I got out of the special teenage condition and convinced my mind that this is my school.

Tags: anil rao, earnings, education, India, results, teenagers
Posted in FairMail, India | No Comments »

New FairMail documentary: From Dump to Diploma

Sunday, September 15th, 2013

Next week FairMail will be on Dutch National Television in the new “Groundbreaker” television series. This week we can offer you the new “From Dump to Diploma” video which came out 3 weeks ago.

This new 8 minute documentary tells the story of FairMail Peru photographers Yuli and Yomira. How they had to work at a young age recycling garbage to supplement their families small income before they started taking pictures for FairMail. The new documentary gives insight into their daily activities for FairMail and how it has impacted their lives. Not only through the earnings from the sale of their cards to invest in their own education. But also in their personal development and the mindset needed to really achieve their goals.

A unique and inspirational documentary of hope and determination! Check it out below.

Tags: education, garbage dump, impact, Peru, photography classes, results, social impact, video, yomira, yuli
Posted in FairMail, Peru | No Comments »

FairMail India teenager Aradhana first in math’s test

Saturday, September 14th, 2013

Hi, my name is Aradhana and I am a photographer in FairMail India. It has been good to be part of this program. I did not know English, nor photography before I entered. But now as I speak with Volunteers in English I feel for myself that my English has improved a lot and I am very happy with my success.

I also see in my tuition that my math’s has improved. I was even first in this year’s math’s test. I have been selected for the next European promotional trip in 2014. I am very excited about that and looking forward for it.

Last month I learned about portrait photography. I used to take portrait photos of others but last month our photography teacher Eleanor taught us how to take portrait of ourselves. So during that time one becomes model and other take photo of you, so it was new for me. I am very thankful to my volunteers who taught us very well and many new things. Thanks to FairMail and also to the Volunteers. Aradhana.

Would you like to share your passion for photography with our teenagers in Peru or India? Then check out the volunteering opportunities and options for travelling with FairMail during our photography trips.

Tags: aradhana, education, impact, India, results, social impact, teenagers
Posted in FairMail, India | No Comments »

FairMail India photographer Dhiraj passes his exam!

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Dhiraj with his family

Remember Dhiraj? The Indian FairMail photographer who traveled through Europe last summer on a FairMail promotion tour and to investigate his card market? When asked by his audience he often repeated that he was waiting for the result of his exam in political sciences.

Now, 7 months later, he finally got the result. As we figured many people would be curious to know we asked him about it. These are the answers we got from him:

1. So what was the result of your exam?

The result was good.The entire process of the exam took about one month to complete with written and oral segments every few days. My goal was to receive 53% and that is the score that I got.

2. How long did you have to wait between taking the exam and hearing the result?

I had to wait six to seven months to hear the result.

3. Why did it take so long?

Well, Uttar Pradesh (the largest Indian state, where Varanasi is situated, red.) has the highest population of students and my college has different boards throughout Uttar Pradesh that are all graded at the same time. So it takes a long time to do that.

4. So what is the next thing you have to do to become an IAS officer?

I have to take an entrance exam and if I pass I will be invited to have an interview. In the next six months, I will prepare for that exam at an institute for IAS officer preparation, and then I will take the exam in May or June.

5. How much money do you still need to earn to finish your study to become an IS officer?

For preparation I will need about 50.000 rupees (725 euro) More or less.

Tags: Dhiraj, education, results
Posted in FairMail, India | No Comments »

FairMail India photographer Ankita gets first place in exams!

Sunday, August 26th, 2012

FairMail India photographer Ankita

“Hi I am Ankita Dinkar, a FairMail photographer working in FairMail for three and half years. I leaned so much in FairMail as I was not keeping myself in discipline. But in FairMail I leaned so much to keep myself in discipline, working hard, being on time and listening to my parents.

I wrote my board examination of the 10^th year and got the result. Guess what? I got first class in this examination. Now I got a new admission in 11^th and am looking forward to fulfilling my dream as I want to become photographer. So I want to go to take a degree in photography in BHU (Benares Hindu University) so I am very much positive to realize my dream.”

Want to read more about Ankita, see her pictures, send her an e-mail or order her cards on-line, then click here.

Tags: ankita, education, results, teenagers
Posted in FairMail, India | No Comments »

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