Fun

Christmas is coming and the best way to celebrate on our blog is to give a big shout out to the wonderful social entrepreneurs and innovators we have met on our journey so far. We have collected gift ideas, events & initiatives and pieces of inspiration.

• Gift ideas with an impact

GOOD Travel membership
For someone who is passionate about travelling, what better gift than joining a community of like-minded people, all committed to having a 2018 full of sustainable and responsible tourism?
http://good-travel.org/holiday-gifts

Business Activist Entrepreneur Membership
For mission-driven entrepreneurs who want to know how to make money, provoke social change and have fun, this is the best offer available online:
https://www.overflowyourpossibility.com/membership
We attended their bootcamp in August, so we know what we are talking about!

Sheedo plantable item selection
Cotton-made paper cards, seeds, mini gardening kits… and 10% of Christmas sales will be used to plant trees: 
https://www.sheedo.es/mercadonavidad/ 

Advent Calendar by 24GoodDeeds
It might be a little late for this one but... who says that good deeds are only for the Christmas season? Check this out what Berlin Impact Hubbers have been doing, get inspired and take action: 
https://www.24-good-deeds.com/adventskalender/

If you are in Russia, Shapka Rulit [Creative Hats] is what you are looking for. Handmade by children and old people, fun and very warm: 
https://shapkarulit.ru/ 

If you are in Shanghai or wider China, Feyi collected the best ideas, ranging from the kit to be a perfect zero waster, upcycled bags, reusable paper gifts, homemade soaps or natural and vegan wine : 
http://www.feiy.co/articles/16 

If you are in the UK, the School for Social Entrepreneurs published an inspiring Christmas Shopping guide that is all about being sustainable with creativity at Christmas:
https://www.the-sse.org/blog/have-i-got-social-enterprise-news-for-you-christmas-shopping-bonanza-edition/ 

• Initiatives & events with an impact

Reverse calendar by Rubies in the Rubble 
Connecting food surplus with the people who need it most. They have been collecting one item each day since 1st December and adding it to the calendar. On Christmas Eve they will be donating it to their nearest food bank. 

24th December in Shanghai… time to celebrate!
Merry Christmas by Green Initiatives & partners.

24th December in Moscow… time to go green!
Day for separate waste collection by Delai Kulturu

Not Christmas-related but a wintery initiative which is simply beautiful:
Stenograffia run a project to make street art available and enjoyable for visually impaired people. A graffiti gallery made with Braille.
Pictures here and a video report here.

So… what are you doing for Christmas? Let us know in the boxes below!
 

The Sunshine Blogger Award and is a way of connecting bloggers and sharing positivity.

These are the rules:

• Thank the person who nominated you for the Sunshine Award and link back to their blog Answer the questions set by the person who nominated you

• Nominate other blogs and give them questions to answer

• Notify your nominees through social media or commenting on their blog

• List the “rules” and display a Sunshine Award logo in your post

So… let’s get started!

THANK YOU, Lisa, great blog!

Less-stuff writes about de-cluttering so her questions are about waste, objects and saving practices. Here are our answers

(our nominees and their questions are below… keep reading!)

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What has made you happy recently?
Ale: the little presents and cards we received from friends to wish us happy travelling!
Fra: our new camera. My parents too got a new one right after getting married. Good memories :)

I write about decluttering but I think stuff is really important to us. What is your favourite thing?
Ale: The Sierra Leonean bracelet that Francesco redesigned and gave me on our engagement.
Fra: my MacBook. It's an object of hope. It has no purpose per se. It can be adapted to any type of change and evolution.

At www.less-stuff.co.uk I do lots of challenges like Plastic Free July and Zero Waste Week. Do you blog any challenges? If not, what is stopping you?
Ale & Fra: not yet. We've just started blogging. We've done a few challenges, though. Sober October a couple of times. Inline-skating tours of cities... Any suggestion for challenges to blog?

What is your top money saving tip?
Ale: in office-based daily life, definitely a lunch box from home. When travelling, Couchsurfing - which is also a super interesting experience!
Fra: working from a public library as opposed to from a café.

How do you reward yourself when you want a treat?
Ale: blueberry soy yoghurt.
Fra: like our blog, our married life has just. The best reward: bacini from my wife
(Ale: oops slightly less romantic...)

Where is your favourite place and why?
Ale: in London, Regent's Canal. Because it's London without being London. And because the landscape and buildings change at every step. In the world... I've got so many favourite places for so many different reasons, I'd probably had to write another blog for that!
Fra: in London, the area around the Tate, the Globe theatre, the millennium bridge. Because it's architecturally beautiful and humanly vibrant.

It is a rainy, miserable day, do you stay in or go out?
Ale: out!
Fra: in...

Marmite, delicious spread or Satans own diarrhoea?
Ale: as a vegan, it’s super helpful to get all the b12 vitamin I need!
Fra: simply disgusting.

What do you do with a glut of courgettes? I need to know this pretty urgently as we have loads in the garden!
Ale: it’s probably too late to answer, Lisa, but… ask my husband ;)
Fra: risotto! If you cook too much, freeze the surplus and eat later on.

What is the best present you can give that isn’t a physical thing?
Ale: time together. Just offered a canoeing afternoon to Fra for his birthday.
Fra: share a passion, teach something that you’re passionate about and skilled in.

Being sustainable is a big part of less-stuff, what is your top tip for living green?
Ale: be moderate in what you think you need. Then, if you are motivated enough, go vegan, start cycling, etc.
Fra: buy the server hosting service by Masterismi.com. It’s based on renewable energy.

Optional question – What is your favourite joke?
Ale: I'm afraid I'm too boring to have a favourite joke...
Fra: “By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher” Socrates… my favourite since I met Ale ;-)

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And now, our turn to nominate beautifully inspiring blogs:

Jasmine’s journey by Jasmine Nguyen
Exploring Social Enterprises around the world
https://journeywithjasmine13.wordpress.com/

EOS International by Wes Meier & team
Co-designing Solutions to Overcome Poverty
http://eosinternational.org/blog/

From Scratch by Sabine Harnau
Supporting businesses whose hearts are in the right place
https://www.from-scratch.net/insights/

Brave & Co Design by Kimi Mischke
Creating honest and brave visual brands for motivated do-gooders
https://www.braveandcodesign.com/blog/

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And our QUESTIONS are:

ABCity.org is a nomadic programme based 2 loves, design and social value, and 1 condition, letters!

1. When you hear 'design', what's the first thing that comes to your mind?

2. How do you measure what's valuable for you?

3. What's your favourite letter (no matter the alphabet!)?

ABCity.org is now travelling to Russia, China, Nepal and Myanmar.

4. What's the most amazing place you've ever visited?

5. The most inspiring person you've ever met?

6. The funniest story from your travelling? ;-)

In our travelling, we'll visit social enterprises working with food, urban innovation or movement sports.

7. Do you have any particular food habit?

8. What's the most incredible thing you've seen in any urban exploration?

9. What's your favourite sport?
The Sunshine Blogger Awards is about blogs that share positivity. We've only just started blogging, so...

10. What's been your favourite post from our blog so far?
If you didn't have a chance to read our blog yet, not a problem, there's a reserve question: Who's your favourite blogger and why?

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And last but not least, our favourite question:

* What's creativity for you?

@ our nominees: Thanks for taking up the challenge. Looking forward to reading your answers soon!

@ any other readers: Feel free to answer any question you fancy in the comment box below. We’d love to hear from you :-)

ABCity.org started with a Y. Why? Because we wanted to take part in a fundraising campaign that would support Ebola recovery work in Liberia. And we wanted to make it fun.

We put together a great cause, our passion for outdoor activities and our graphic talent and we came up with an idea. We would ‘draw’ a 20-mile long Y on our inline skates across London, create a buzz around it and source funds.
Our inline-skating challenge took place on 2nd August 2015. And ABCIty.org was born.

Back in 2015, I was working in a Youth-focussed charity and trying to help our partners in Liberia to cope with the effects of the deadly Ebola virus that had hitten the country the year before. When we got the amazing news that the UK Government would match every single pound donated to our cause until end of August, I decided that it was time to challenge myself, get my work to the street and do something more for the young people around the world!
 
And how did Francesco get involved? Francesco, like many, heard so much about the damages and deaths that Ebola provoked in West Africa through the media. Then the media forgot about the outbreak... but Francesco continued to hear stories from Liberia through my words when I was working to support the emergency response in Liberia from the London-based office and then travelled out there. Francesco heard the stories of the Young people who helped prevent the further spread of the virus, stories of the project staff's courage and determination working in country, and stories of businesses obliged to close down, children kept out of schools, hospitals too crowded to assist non-Ebola-affected patients, communities suffering from not accessing food as they needed. Yes, because Ebola didn't only mean death and illness but also economy disrupted, schools closed, health care systems exhausted and food insecurity.

We had to do something. And we wanted to do something beautiful and fun. So the best idea we came up with was to do what we really like (spending time outdoor and moving through spaces), graphically-driven (in the shape of a letter from the alphabet), to support that important cause. The result was a great day under unexpected London’s sunshine, our fundraising target exceeded and a short video (1’38) that gave us and my organisation visibility and pride! 

We didn’t know this was the beginning of ABCity.org but indeed it was. One year later, we found ourselves inline-skating again. It was in Milan, in the shape of a C and again for an important cause. 

Now, we are ready to continue writing a story with social impact, one letter after the other, one cause after the other.

And you, how did you get involved in what makes you busy and proud today? 

Some of this post is quoted from our Justgiving page for the Y challenge.