Wallet activism

A fair trade story on the Star Newspaper posted yesterday – go here to check it out.

2 things though:

- Elevyn.com’s work with Indigenous Peoples was inspired by Sze Ning while she was in Sabah, by Gerai OA and ebannok.com. Without them, Elevyn might never have engaged any of the Indigenous communities.

- 45% percent of Malaysian fair trade buyers referred to are those that purchase on elevyn.com. Some of which are friends of friends. We’ve yet to sell these items offline, so I don’t know what challenges we’ll face.

Ok, enjoy the story : ) Click here

Futsal event corrections in the media

It’s great to see the media and friends support our effort to provide a fair platform for artisans. Today, we had a writeup in Malay Mail and New Straits Times on a fund raising futsal event we’re having on the 29th November.

You can view it here and here.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of corrections in the Malay Mail story:

1.  Elevyn is not an NGO. We were established on 31st December 2007 as Elevyn Sdn Bhd. Currently, Elevyn takes a 5% commission from every sale made on elevyn.com. We are however improving our model to deliver items to buyers, and the commission rate might change. We will be sure to let everyone know if it does.

2. Elevyn does not have a centre called Mang Tha. Elevyn.com provides an avenue for existing communities and organizations to connect to buyers. Mang Tha is a social development project under the Alliance for Chin refugees (ACR).

3.  Buyers referred to from France, Australia, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were direct offline purchases from Mang Tha, without elevyn.com. (We are still waiting for buyers from these countries though to purchase on elevyn.com!)

Elevyn in the Media – The Star & OutskirtOutreach.org

In the Star TechCentral – Canvass Webbing

What do Elevyn artisans and a rural housewife have in common? They’re all utilizing the online media to reach out to new markets!

OutskirtOutreach.org – An E-Boost for Rural Crafts

An online interview with Elevyn co-founder Devan Singaram.

Become Community Heroes Through ICT

As some of you may know, MDEC has been greatly supportive of Elevyn since day one.

Recently, as part of its “Senang Dengan ICT” Campaign (translation: Easy with ICT), Elevyn was featured as one of a series of ads published in the national newspapers. The idea was to highlight projects that have helped empowered communities using Information & Communications Technology (ICT).

Become Community Heroes Through ICT

We’re not too sure about the “community heroes” tagline though!

Surf Magazine: A New Wave of Entrepreneurs

As Sze Ning quoted, “Never in my lifetime would I have imagined gracing the cover of a magazine!”

Well, that was exactly what happened when Kash from Surf Magazine called up not long ago to schedule an interview on Elevyn, and invited us to a photo shoot at his studio.

The cover story was an excellent coverage of young start-ups in the Malaysian web 2.0 scene, which also featured thoughtful words from Hailer’s YK Goon and interesting projects such as Foldees, SocialWalk, Earth247 and EzyPzy.

Many thanks to Kash and James Yeang for the write-ups.

Get your copy of Surf Magazine in the newstands today!

The Edge Daily: 65 websites that we like

Elevyn featured in 65 top malaysian websites on the Edge Daily this week. Some comments by the editors:

“The website promises more shops and products coming soon, which will offer users more reason to shop and help. Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later.”

We hear you loud and clear. Our team will be making our next trip to Cambodia this month, and we expect 3 news shops to come online (plus an additional special guest..). So, do check back in a couple of weeks.

Thanks Dash and Ching Yee for letting us know.

Personal Money: Online Entrepreneurs to the Fore

Elevyn gets a feature in the March 2009 issue of Personal Money. Yay!
Click for larger version.

The Star: Driven to Succeed

Image credit: Grace Chen, The Star Metro

The Star newspaper recently ran a feature on Maznah Unyan, an indigenous artisan in Carey Island, Malaysia. The article provided an interesting look into Maznah’s background, and how she initiated the Tompoq Topoh initiative as a means to preserve the Mah Meri heritage and to provide income-earning opportunities for the womenfolk.

Tompoq Topoh recently set up an online store on Elevyn in hopes of reaching out to a wider market base.

Featured on Change.org

Elevyn’s pledge to “Alleviate poverty in marginalized and rural groups through fair trade” is a featured Action on Change.org. We also had a write-up in its Fair Trade blog, describing the work that we do and our goal to support 125 artisans by World Fair Trade Day in May 2009.

Change.org is an online platform for informing and empowering movements for social change around the most important issues of our time.

Elevyn on Air: BFM 89.9

My first encounter with BFM 89.9, “The Business Station” as it bills itself, was entirely coincidental. As with any other day, my fingers were firmly placed on the channel buttons on the car radio. I’m fickle with my music so it’s very rarely that a station stays on air for more than a song!

My “channel surfing” brought me to this nice classic old rock song that took me rather by surprise. So it stayed on, and another classic came up. Then another. Needless to say, I was shell-shocked to discover a local station that was dishing out something different. They were playing good music!

Some weeks later, the station followed up with new programmes interviewing entrepreneurs and business personalities, which was right down my alley. Wild Asia’s Dr Reza was on one of the show, as did Jonathan Wong from PushMore where I work out.

And as luck would have it, word got around about the work that we do on Elevyn, and we got the invite. Yay! It’ll be on Tuesday 20 January, 10am on 88.9, so stay tuned! Or listen online.

Not familiar with BFM? You may have seen them on the back of taxis. “Bagi Free Minyak”, “Bribe Free Malaysia”, etc. Funny!