Whether the goal is to thank volunteers or raise awareness, it’s really fun to hear about some of the creative things charities do.
-Cheryl
Thirty-three years ago, a group of teachers noticed Canada and Latin America shared common histories. Through this realization, they also saw a need for social change and more global education in Latin American countries. The teachers became inspired to form CoDevelopment Canada, a non-governmental organization dedicated to carrying out this mission.
One of their main areas of focus is educating women who work for low wages in factories known as maquiladoras. The organization works to ensure these women have equal rights and access to good healthcare.
“Our mission is to make connections that strengthen international solidarity. We believe that solidarity is at the root of social justice and we work with our partners to improve the lives of women, workers and families,” says Cindy Pandini, communications and development director.
CoDevelopment Canada takes their mission one step further by importing and selling fair-trade coffee. “We also have a small fair-trade coffee company, which is a social enterprise attached to CoDev. We import coffee from a number of Latin American countries; we sell that coffee and the profits go back into CoDev.” As the recipient of a 4imprint® one by one grant, CoDevelopment Canada is using branded promotional gifts, like coffee mugs, to present to visiting dignitaries to further strengthen relationships.
“We sell coffee all over the city and ship it to other locations. We do a lot of coffee tastings in town, and we attend many, many kinds of events where we bring coffee with us. And now we have the coffee mugs.”
To learn more about the 4imprint one by one program, visit our website at onebyone.4imprint.com. You can read more stories from our inspiring group of one by one recipients on Cheryl’s blog.