Love Brand & Co: Giving Back to the Elephants

  

As we all know, there are many wildlife charity organisations out there in the world working to help save, protect, and maintain endangered species lives and habitats. We at The Amazing Blog are always interested in these wonderful projects, and we have found an absolutely great one to introduce to you! Oliver Tomalin, who is passionate about Elephants and Fashion has found an exciting way to blend his two loves. A clothing company that donates sales to elephant conservation! I’m sure many, if not all of you know that elephants are drastically at risk for becoming completely extinct, and we can do our part to help save the species.

 

Love Brand & Co.  is the clothing company created by Oliver Tomalin that sells men’s and boy’s t-shirts, polo shirts, and a vast array of shorts. For every sale made, 5% of sales are donated to conserving elephants and their habitats. The company supports quite a few wonderful organisations. Elephant Family created by Mark Shand works to save the Asian Elephant and its habitat. They also have UK-wide Education Programs to extend the knowledge of the issue. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust works in Kenya to hand rear orphaned elephant babies until they are strong enough to survive in the wild. They also work with anti-poaching efforts and have mobile veterinary units in place. Another trust that Love Brand & Co supports is the Tusk Trust, which has raised over £16 million to conserve wildlife and alleviate poverty across Africa.

 

Sounds wonderful, right? Well, it is. You can take your part and help the elephants, and get great clothes in the meantime.  The t-shirts and polo shirts have an adorable elephant logo, and the shorts are available in a wide variety of colours and prints. Plus, they are all made with 100% organic cotton, which is a fabulous thing on it’s own. These are perfect for you, a friend, son, or boyfriend. Hopefully we will get some women’s clothes in the mix soon from Love Brand & Co. They retail between £49.00-£119.00 and are available on their website. The company also has a flagship store at 5 Park Walk, London.

Tan Rosie Caribbean Supper Club Recipe Book

So today starts Britain's National Curry Week, and with over 23 million of us Brits enjoying curry on a regular basis each year, and being food lovers as we are at The Amazing Blog, there was no way we were not be featuring this occassion on our blog. National Curry Week will be celebrating Britain's love for curry in restaurants, pubs and canteens whilst helping to raise funds to combat malnutrition and poverty.

Knowing that Curry Week was close, at The Amazing Blog we wanted to show our fellow readers our favourite curry recipes that we've discovered thank you to Tan Rosie Caribbean Supper Club Recipe Book. These collection of recipes were taken from the successful Tan Rosie Caribbean Supper Club in Birmingham. The book provides you with an in-depth and interesting view of typical and authentic caribbean food, with easy-to-follow instructions. "Channa Dhal" and "Curry Mutton" are our favourite curry recipes, although I think we may still have to improve our skills to make it as tasty as the original Tan Rosie's recipe.

Tan Rosie Caribbean Supper Club most famous recipes are "Rice and Peas" (one of our favs -  step-by-step here on YouTube), "Jerk Chicken" and "Curry Goat". At The Amazing Blog we love the idea of supper clubs and the story behind the foundation of Tan Rosie Foods by mother and daughter, Lee Sylvester and Monica Cudjoe  (Tan Rosie was the mother of the Lee). If you love cooking and want to try simple yet exotic and delicious recipes, we can't recommend this  recipe book highly enough.

You can buy Tan Rosie Caribbean Supper Club Recipe Book and any their amazing food from their website.

If you wish to keep up to date with events and happenings during National Curry Week visit their official website and support their lovely cause.

Colour for a Cause

Ok so we’ve all heard about naming a star after a loved one and adopting an endangered Panda, but if you fancy doing something a bit more original, with a worthy cause thrown in for good measure, you can now own a colour. UNICEF, the children’s charity, is the driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every child are realized, and they have teamed up with Dulux to raise as much money as possible to continue their life-changing work. Own A Colour is a fantastic movement started by a small group of individuals – passionate in their belief that small acts can combine collectively to save the lives of many children one child at a time.

In a world where the average computer, Blackberry and iPhone can display an incredible 16.7 million colours, there’s more than enough to go round and every colour sold will make a huge difference to a lot of children in need.  UNICEF is hoping that each and every colour will be named and they are asking for minimum donations starting at £1. All the money raised will go directly to help transform children’s lives and buying a colour makes a quirky alternative to your candy-cane stocking fillers.

Even donating as little as little as £1 can have a profound effect on those in need. UNICEF was founded in 1946 and has spent over six decades campaigning tirelessly to give children the best possible start in life. Their work includes promoting girls’ education, providing immunisation against childhood diseases and working to prevent the spread of HIV and Aids among young people. Such is their dedication to the cause that UNICEF is active in more than 190 countries is part of the Global Movement for Children.

So, whether you fancy yourself as a dusky pink, an opulent purple hue or an emerald green, dig deep and get colouring.

Whatever It Takes

Here at Amazing PR we love fashion with a cause as not only is it often a great way to snap up a designer piece on a budget but we can feel good about ourselves while we spend!

Whatever It Takes is a unique artwork campaign launched by the 21st Century Leaders Foundation. Whatever It Takes supports the 21st Century Leaders Foundation in its work for key global development causes including poverty alleviation, environmental conservation and the protection of children. 21st Century Leaders Foundation’s mission is to assist and encourage a generation of influencers – including royalty, Nobel peace prize laureates, and well-known figures in the fields of film, music, fashion, art and literature - to raise awareness and funds for international development causes and lead the way in promoting positive environmental and sustainable human development solutions.

Over 660 leaders in the worlds of fashion, film, television, art, music and sport, have donated personal artwork and signed messages of hope for the future. The artwork has been used to design and create a variety of products including t-shirts, mugs, plates, watches, computer accessories, clocks and bags. Celebrities and designers including George Clooney, Donna Karen, Paul Smith, Heidi Klum, Charlize Theron and Lily Allen are just some of the names that have offered to show off their creative flair for the good cause.

Not surprisingly I was immediately drawn to the range of bags which have been designed by the likes of Stella McCartney and Diane von Furstenberg amongst others and are all available for under £25. Here at Amazing PR we also love the iPhone and iPod cases designed by the likes of Katy Perry, George Clooney, Eminem, Vivienne Westwood and Kanye West. Each one has a quirky illustration and inspirational message to personalise your phone and support the very worthy cause.

Check out www.whateverittakes.org to find out more.

Fine Cell Work

As the daughter of a literacy teacher at Huntercombe Prison, the idea of rehabilitating inmates is something frequently touched upon in my household. With unemployment figures at their worst for decades and the job market saturated with middle-class graduates and skilled professionals unable to find work, it’s hardly surprising that many inmates go on to re-offend. And with the stigma of a prison sentence and a frequent lack in qualifications, it can be a bleak and depressing future for anyone wanting to turn their life around post-prison.

And so, Fine Cell Work, a charity that teaches prisoners the art of sewing while serving time, does a fantastic job of providing a much needed skill that prisoners can utilise both in and outside prison. Founded in 1997 by Lady Anne Tree after decades of campaigning for the right of prisoners to earn money, Fine Cell Work has grown from a bedsit in Bloomsbury to a registered charity which has over 60 volunteers training over 400 prisoners in 29 prison across England.

Proving that the extraordinary can happen even in as austere an environment as prison, Fine Cell Work volunteers train prisoners in paid, skilled needlework to foster hope, discipline and self esteem. And with seventy per-cent of convicted prisoners spending an average of seventeen hours a day in their cell, the therapeutic aspect of learning to sew can be just as important as acquiring a new skill.

Such is the success of the charity that all their classes have waiting lists within the prisons and over 2,500 items were sold in 2010, including cushion covers, quilts and tapestries. Each creation takes approximately one-hundred hours to make, and each stitcher embroiders for, on average, twenty hours a week. And with over 10,000 commissions completed since the charity began in 1997 for clients including The V&A, The Tate Modern and The Royal Palaces, Fine Cell Work is proof that with a lot of determination, dedication and hard work prisoners can piece their lives back together stitch by stitch.

The fantastic pieces produced by Fine Cell Work are all available to buy online; commissions are welcomed and having recently been showcased at the London Design Festival, they are also featuring tonight on BBC 2’s The Culture Show at 7pm. We think both the cause and the concept are incredibly worthy and hope that you do too!