The eggnog is in the fridge, the tree is trimmed and now it’s time to open the door to dozens of merrymaking holiday party guests.

Or… Maybe not.

River Monsters

Every morning, the men who fish the cloudy waters of the Mekong River in Cambodia trawl for fish, crab, snails, and whatever else they can snag in their nets. The river is second in aquatic biodiversity only to the Amazon, so fishermen are used to catching – and selling – almost anything they can pull out of the mud. But there’s one thing lurking that no one wants to disturb.

From frosty Andean peaks to dense Amazon rainforest, Peru is a country of geographic extremes.

Diversity is found in its communities, too.

Urban and coastal areas have seen recent economic growth, but rural, indigenous communities still struggle. Today, the poverty rate in the Peruvian Amazon and mountain areas hovers at 55 per cent and approximately one quarter of all children aged six to 14 are forced to work.

Glass. We drink from it, eat off of it and look through panes of it. So ubiquitous that we barely notice it’s there. It becomes invisible.

But for the artisans and employees who work at Crisil, a glass-making workshop based in the highlands of Cochabamba, Bolivia, its impact on daily life is perfectly clear.

Crisil is a family-run business founded in 1991 by the Bustos family, who wanted to support the Cochabamba community where unemployment ran high and families struggled just to find food. Based on fair trade principles including fair pay for work, respect for the environment and good working conditions, it now employs roughly 100 people in jobs ranging from sorting recycled glass to hand-blowing each tumbler, bowl, vase and goblet with expertise and precision.

Maybe you can’t travel to Kenya and plant 20 trees tomorrow, but what if your socks could?

Sound far-fetched? Maybe not. Ten Thousand Villages recently partnered with Conscious Step, a social enterprise in New York that makes fair trade socks with a manufacturer in New Delhi. The company’s “Socks for a Cause” campaign matches a sock design with a non-profit organization to make the world a better place.

With Hallowe’en just days away, it’s easy to get swept up in the spooky excitement of October 31^st. Kids across Canada are counting down the days until they can wriggle into their costumes, ring doorbells and return home with a stash of candy and mini chocolate bars.

But, sadly, chocolate does not always lead to happiness for children who toil on cocoa farms, particularly in Western Africa where child labour and even slavery continue.

Although there is a huge demand for cocoa worldwide – which can only be grown in small tropical areas in Africa and South America – most farmers live in destitute poverty due to low prices, small farm sizes and lack of infrastructure. According to the most recent Cocoa Barometer, cocoa farmers in Ghana make 84 cents a day. This figure is well below the local poverty line, so they rely on children’s cheap labour to carry the load (sometimes literally.) Child workers have described being forced to hoist cocoa-pod-filled sacks larger than they are.