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Team Honk LastingChangeCelebrating International Women’s Day – and #LastingChange – Please meet Eliafura, who is one of the many women to have benefited from support given through Comic Relief.

Through mentoring and training, the Gatsby Trust gave Eliafura the confidence to develop her business, and to make a #LastingChange by passing on her knowledge and skills to countless other women.

The Gatsby Trust (which has been awarded a Comic Relief grant of £264,959 over three years) helps 1000 female entrepreneurs by educating both women and their partners about women’s rights, and by providing support and training.

Team-Honk-LastingChangeTeam Honk is raising money and awareness for Comic Relief.
Tanya (T) from MummyBarrow, along with Annie from Mammasaurus and Penny from The Alexander Residence  (all of whom are the driving force behind Team Honk) have been invited to Tanzania by Comic Relief for International Women’s Day #iwd2014, to help raise awareness of how the charity has helped women in Tanzania get jobs, start businesses and secure a future for their families and communities. Creating female entrepreneurs and #lastingchange for women, their families and communities and beyond – rippling out #lastingchange in Africa.

More about Eliafura

Eliafura makes the most beautiful batiks and tie dyed material.  With the support of the Gatsby Trust Eliafura has registered her business and learned important health and safety rules around the chemicals she uses. Eliafura now also trains other women in the village who bring material to her and she shows them how to create these beautiful patterns. They sell easily to not only local schools where teachers like to buy them but also overseas.

Tanya, Team Honk, sent me a digital postcard of the photo of Eliafura: We bought her entire stock because we loved them all so much and are now working out how to sell them on so we can complete the circle of donation, funding, training, selling, donating.

Want to get involved yourself? The first ever Sport Relief games take place from 21-23 March, and you can sign up for your local event here.

Have you sponsored us? Us London-based types dressed up in tutus and stripy tights and joined in with Honkopoly #TeamHonkRelay, the London stretch of Team Honk’s relay from Lands End to John O’ Groats, to raise money for Sport Relief. You can find out more about it here, and sponsor our efforts through the London just giving page.

How else can you help? If you are on twitter, please RT, share and support any updates you see with the #lastingchange hashtag.

Read more about the Team Honk trip to Tanzania here, and here (Annie), here (Tanya) and here (Penny). We wish them all a safe journey, and look forward to hearing more from them on their return – Inspiring women, making a #LastingChange for #InternationalWomensDay #WomensDay #IWD14.

Thanks for helping to create #lastingchange

charity, life

What an amazing thing to be a part of… the #TeamHonkRelay – Team Honk is a collection of bloggers, Tweeters and Facebookers who come together to raise money for Comic Relief and Sport Relief.

Team Honk, set up in 2013 by Tanya Mummy Barrow, Penny from Aresidence and Annie Mammasuarus, have this year designed a blogger team honk relay challenge where a baton is being passed from Lands End to John O Groats. Bloggers up and down the country will be using a range of weird and wonderful modes of transport to pass the baton over.

teamhonkrelay badgeYesterday was London’s turn… Our leg of the team honk relay was an ingenious Monopoly theme – #Honkopoly! We covered every colour of the Monopoly board with a couple of extra iconic points of interest along the way. We walked, skipped, ran, skated, and pushed buggies. Armed with the baton and props including Get Out Of Jail , Chance and Pass Go cards as well as amazingly designed leaflets which we gave out to people with details of what we were doing…and tonight we find that we are on the leaderboard of Sport Relief’s ‘freestyle‘ fundraisers!

Bloggers who took part in the London leg included: Vanessa from HPMcQ, Sophie from Franglaise Mummy , Sarah from Grenglish, Swazi from Chocolate is not the only fruit, Alison from Not Another Mummy Blog, Me (KidsChaos) in my Hi-Tec trainers, Jennifer from Jenography, Gillian from A Baby on Board, Rosie from Mummy and Boo, Gretta from Mums Do Travel, Julia from I Carried a Watermelon, Stephanie from Was This In The Plan?, Jacinta from Jacintaz3, Maria aka @maniasmama3, Sachelle from Holiday Tots, Maggy from RedTedArt, Nell from the Pigeon Pair and Me, Kelly from domesticgoddesque, and Uju from babesabouttown.

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ali clifford maggy woodley honkopolyWe had a great day being a part of the team honk relay.

supporting this worthy charity and raising money for a fantastic cause. So, we’d love it if you could sponsor us all here please. Thanks so much!

I think it’s worth it for Maggy, Red Ted Art‘s eyelashes, and our tutu and tights get-up from Delights UK – we certainly got some *HONKS*.

You can keep track of the journey by following the hashtags #TeamHonkRelay – and let us know when you have sponsored us, so that we can tweet about you too!

And if you’re interested in actively getting involved with Sport Relief, the first ever Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Games take place from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd March 2014. The public can join the fun and games by running, swimming or cycling their way to raising cash at over a thousand venues around the country, including the landmark events at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Honkopoly-incredibusy-redtedart-teamAs one of the biggest fundraising events, Sport Relief brings the entire nation together to get active raise cash and change lives. The money raised by the public is spent by Comic Relief to help transform the lives of some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people both at home in the UK and across the world.

baking, life

Chaos writes:

So, how my life has changed. Gone are the days of claiming a posh lunch on expenses, or even HAVING a lunch break. Working from home, and managing school runs, and budgeting on a day to day basis leaves us freelancers with little time for ourselves.

So there is nothing I like better these days that going to a cafe and having a (Fairtrade) coffee and a slice of cake. (click here to sample a slice of our own #Fairtrade Cake!) This has become a ‘treat’ to me, is that a little tragic? I just get such a pleasure from meeting a friend, having a chat, a soya latte and time out from the other ‘stuff’.

A bonus for me, is that our little local cafe owner (The Gooseberry Bush, SW19) totally has her heart in the right place too, she is constantly raising money for the local St George’s Hospital neonatal unit (@FirstTouchNNU) and all of her delicious food is locally sourced, and the coffee is of course Fairtrade too.

So as we approach Fairtrade Fortnight, I thought I’d give one of you a chance to get your hands on your own delicious Fairtrade coffee, with it’s own special story.

Mzuzu Fairtrade Ground Coffee is part of the Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range. Grown by the Mzuzu cooperative high in the Misuku hills, in the northernmost region of Malawi.

Three years ago Sainsbury’s joined with Comic Relief coffee traders Finlays and Twin, the fair trade organisation which works with smallholder farming groups, to develop new African speciality grade coffees..

The project is funded by the Government’s Department for International Development under its Food Retail Industry Challenge Fund (FRICH), which sets out to improve the lives of poor communities in Africa.

Ellen Msiska, Fairtrade coffee farmer said: “I have brought water down to my house from the hills in a pipe which I paid for and laid myself. This was paid for from coffee money, and means I have good quality water for my children to drink.”

This prize draw has now closed. Many thanks for all of the entries! Really enjoyed reading them 🙂 MANY CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNER ‘FRAN’ TOO!!
How to enter:

1 – Comment below to tell us your coffee story… your favourite time for coffee? with a cake? IN a cake? A Latte? or a Flat White?

2 – ‘Like’ KidsChaos on Facebook and tell us how you like your coffee.
and comment below to tell us you’ve done so.

3 – Follow Twin Fairtrade on twitter to support their work and Fairtrade Fortnight

4 – Follow @MoreKidsChaos on twitter with a little fun #HowMuchIsTooMuchCoffee? hashtag

5 – For an extra entry, Add KidsChaos into your circles in Google + and comment below to tell us you’ve done so.

Terms and Conditions

– Entrants must be over 18 and in the UK
– By entering this prize draw, the player assigns to KidsChaos.com all exclusive rights to reproduce and represent the copy related to this competition on any media (both online and offline)
– Entries close Midnight on the 10th March (the last day of Fairtrade Fortnight)
– The winners will be notified personally
– KidsChaos’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered in to and no cash alternative will be offered
– This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook or Google+

Interesting Links:

Michaela Strachan reports on food safety from Malawi

Comic Relief

Fairtrade Fortnight 2013 runs from Mon 25 February to Sun 10 March

Mzuzu Project, Malawi