Oxfam GB

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The number of people leaving Syria to seek refuge in neighbouring Lebanon and Jordan, and the number being displaced with Syria itself, is increasing everyday.  We’ve put together this infographic to help sum up the situation. The numbers are really quite staggering. 

I think the infographic pretty much speaks for itself.  Putting the numbers into a UK context goes some way to helping us comprehend the scale of the crisis and the upheaval it has caused. Oxfam’s staff are on the ground in Lebanon and Jordan, helping refugees desperately in need of emergency assistance.

Thank you to everyone that has supported our Syria Crisis Appeal.  If you haven’t done so yet, please donate today. 

Oxfam and high street retailer Monsoon have joined forces with artisan producers in India to design produce and sell a delightful range of ethical homeware products. Monsoon designed each item and then skilled workers fromSelf Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Noah’s Ark and Tara Projects produced them to be sold in Oxfam shops.

The exquisite selection of kitchen textiles, including hand-embroidered oven gloves, aprons and tea towels. Plus, other home accessories are adorned with a fun, vintage cherry print for the Spring/Summer range. There are also brightly coloured, enamel elephants covered in a floral design which make fantastic gifts to decorate any home.

The textile products, including tea towels and oven gloves, were hand embroidered by Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) an organisation which empowers female skilled workers. SEWA have been registered as a Trade Union since 1972 representing who rely on their own labour for survival. They aim to help women workers develop and organise employment to become self-reliant and secure.

The enamel products, such as storage tins and plant pots are hand finished by Noah’s Ark and Tara projects who are both established fair trade organisations. The projects work to empower low-income artisans and preserve the cultural traditions of their craft whilst breaking the cycle of poverty.

Noah’s Ark is a Fair Trade handicrafts business for the upliftment of artisans and the community and was formed in 1986. They offer a range of hand made items from home accessories to jewellery. Tara works to improve access to health, education and economic opportunity in nearly two dozen different countries. Their focus is on community as opposed to a specialist area or country .

The range will be available from selected Oxfam shops nationwide and prices start at £2.99. There is also a fantastic introductory offer of 20% off until 29th May so find your nearest participating Oxfam shop here.

ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP

Monsoon and Oxfam are working in partnership to produce beautiful and affordable, high quality products; hand finished by artisan producers in India.  Monsoon launched Monsoon Boutique in 2011 with the aim to create beautiful hand-crafted gifts and homewares, while creating livelihoods for disadvantaged artisan communities.

Monsoon is proud to be a founder member of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and is committed to ensuring high ethical standards across their supply chain.  For more information Monsoon’s website Ethical Trading

Monsoon, who has worked with artisans in India since 1973, is committed to creating opportunities for disadvantaged producers. Monsoon approached Oxfam’s Buying Team to collaborate on a range of products that are sourced through the Monsoon Boutique supply chain in order to provide the producer groups with greater access to market.  All producer groups are either WFTO members or operate as community cooperatives. Sourcing through Monsoon is in-line with Oxfam’s Ethical and Environment Purchasing Policy and are working together to better inform our approach to sourcing from artisan producer groups. 

Oxfam is very excited to be working with Monsoon because of the design kudos Monsoon has on the High Street that will appeal to our current customer whilst attracting new customers.  Monsoon are supporting Oxfam in product advice, design and sourcing product to create a unique range to improve market access for artisan producers and generate more money for Oxfam.

All profits from the range will go towards supporting Oxfam’s work around the world. 

By Helen Archard Online Fashion Content Intern

Recent UNHCR figures (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) show the rapid escalation of the refugee crisis engulfing Syria and neighbouring countries.

Far from a steady growth in refugee numbers, instead it shows an alarmingly steep increase of people fleeing violence in Syria to camps across the border. And this doesn’t include many thousands of people arriving in border communities already struggling to cope. With as many as 4 million more displaced within Syria itself, this is a huge and long term crisis.

Today, Oxfam raises its Syria Crisis response to a ‘Category 1’ emergency.  This is not a media soundbite (we don’t refer to it publicly). What it means is that our humanitarian teams with years of experience in all kinds of emergencies put the scale of human suffering they are encountering, the complexity of the situation, and therefore the size of response needed from Oxfam and other agencies at the very highest level. It’s also an internal directive for all Oxfam staff to urgently prioritise work on Syria above all else.

This is not something Oxfam does lightly. To put this into perspective, the Asian Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004 was one of the very few other Category 1 emergencies of the last decade. This emergency was accompanied by shocking footage that revealed the scale of the disaster in the starkest possible terms, and the UK public responded with unprecedented generosity (up to £1M an hour was donated in the immediate aftermath).

Other ‘Category 1s’, such as the chronic food crisis in East Africa in 2011-12, are every bit as important, but more easily overlooked: the causes are complex, and the consequences unfold slowly over time, making them difficult, if not impossible, to capture at a single moment in time. So it is with Syria.

But in the absence of defining images to crystallise the plight of refugees fleeing violence, UN figures like these at least go some way to illustrating that the crisis in and around Syria is huge and growing, and Syria’s families need our help more than ever.

Here, across the Oxfam confederation, it’s going to be all hands to the pump over the coming weeks and months. If you can help, please donate to the Syria Crisis Appeal. 

As the Syria Crisis continues to grow, the different things people are doing to support families caught up in the crisis are helping to inspire hope. During the past fortnight, 22 March to 7 April, Syrian-born artist, Issam Kourbaj, has been exhibiting his new art project, Excavating the Present, in a former furnishing emporium in Cambridge. Proceeds from the exhibition are being donated to different charities, including Oxfam. 

Issam Kourbaj is artist-in-residence at Christ’s College, Cambridge.  He was born in Syria and he trained in Damascus, Leningrad and London. 

Issam wanted his exhibition, Excavating the Present, to raise both awareness and funds for Syrian refugee families. In view of the tragic events currently taking place, the exhibition focuses on the fragility of life in current-day Syria - and offers hope for a better world.

On the opening night of the exhibition Oxfam received £1200 in donations and an additional £3000 is on its way thanks to work that has been sold during the past fortnight. Issam’s work will be touring nationally and internationally - the dates and venues are still to be confirmed. anyone wishing to host the exhibition can contact Issam at ik254@cam.ac.uk.

Over a million Syrian refugees are now registered, or are awaiting registration, with the UN having fled violence in their own country. Oxfam staff are in Lebanon and Jordan, helping refugees desperately in need of emergency assistance and funds are still urgently needed. 

If you can, please support Oxfam’s Syria Crisis Appeal.

By Lisa Rutherford

Congratulations! After ten very long years of campaigning, passion and unbelievable determination from Oxfam supporters in the UK, yesterday the world voted overwhelmingly for an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to regulate the global arms trade for the first time. I sat at the back of the UN General Assembly Hall, watching the electronic voting board start to light up and, seconds later, the result flashed up for everyone to see: 154 ‘yes’ votes as the world overwhelmingly agreed an Arms Trade Treaty.

A loud cheer erupted from the Control Arms team, this has been a long time coming. Oxfam was one of the three founding members of Control Arms and your endless email actions, meetings with hundreds of MPs and petitions over the past decade helped ensure that in the UK, our government never lost sight of the public demand for a robust ATT that would save lives.

We simply would not be celebrating this success without your help. It has taken ten years since the launch of the Control Arms campaign, including six years of UN negotiations to reach this historic moment. And there have been endless obstacles put in the way of our progress to bring the irresponsible arms trade under control. But we joined in solidarity with millions of people from around the world and never stopped believing that an ATT could become a reality.

The Treaty text is not perfect, but it was significantly strengthened during the past two weeks. And after consensus was blocked last week by Iran, Syria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, momentum pushed governments to take the treaty to the UN General Assembly to be adopted by vote instead. The world has now listened to the majority of countries who want an ATT, not the tiny minority who wanted to wreck the process.

This is just the start. In two months time the treaty will open for signature, and we want as many as possible to sign. And once 50 countries have ratified the treaty it will “enter into force”, and become international law. And then we need to ensure that it all governments ratify the Treaty so that the standards become universal.

But for now, we must celebrate. Celebrate that an idea from NGOs that was first supported by just three countries has now been overwhelmingly agreed by 154 countries. And celebrate that people living in countries devastated by conflict and armed violence will now be better protected from the irresponsible arms trade.

Campaigning works - and wins don’t get much bigger than this!

On 1 February, 25-year-old Hasan Hariri took over Oxfam’s Twitter page to give us an insight into a day in the life of a Syrian refugee living in Zaatari camp in Jordan. Today, there’s another Twitter takeover. This time, several people - each with their own stories and experiences - will be telling us about their day. Meet the tweeters here: http://bit.ly/YtrKJ8  as we introduce Hanan, Zakaria, Ohoud, Abu Diya - and of course, Hasan. You’ll also be hearing from Oxfam staff, including Farah Al-Basha, who are working in the camp. 

How transparent are your favourite food brands about the way they do business? Are they treating women equally? Do they respect their workers and the environment? Find out in our Behind the Brands report: http://bit.ly/XCQj5S

Longtime supporters of Oxfam’s work know that we have a long and creative history of working with our global ambassadors, Coldplay. This week, we’ve taken this collaboration to new creative heights with the announcement of a crowd-sourced project that asks fans of the band to contribute to a video highlighting theglobal injustice of land grabs. Every two days, an area of land the size of Chicago is sold to foreign investors in developing countries; two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on the land - in some cases, destroying local food supplies in places where food insecurity is already dangerously high and forcing many people to go hungry.

For their contributions to the video, participants will move a favourite, personal, or familiar item from their home to somewhere it doesn’t belong, or do a personal, everyday, or familiar activity that they’d usually do at home, in totally the wrong place. The video, which will be set to an exclusive just-for-Oxfam acoustic version of the classic ‘In My Place’, will be stitched together by Coldplay’s music video and film director Mat Whitcross.

Star in a video for Coldplay and Oxfam

Do you ever wonder which fashion brands are the most ethical and sustainable? Our new blog post from Oxfam Fashion shows you a handy new way to find out! http://bit.ly/UFKxDy