June's Focus: SpendYourself

Isaac and I choose a company our friends recently started as our Focus of the Month for June. According to their website, SpendYourself "is an apparel company with a heart for social justice and a vision to drive positive change in the world." SpendYourself will be selling a series of shirts in order to raise funds for specific causes across the globe. By doing so, they hope to help fund sustainable solutions to different social injustices, as well as to raise awareness, not only for each specific cause, but also for the need to be well-informed of what is happening in our world today. How can we fight social injustice if we do not know it is happening? By bringing attention to those individuals suffering under these injustices, we are helping to give a voice to those whose voice was taken away.

Currently, there are two shirts for sale on the SpendYourself website; one is the SpendYourself logo shirt (which Isaac has), and the other is the Omed Hope shirt (which I have). The proceeds of the Omed Hope shirt benefit Sozo International, working in Afghanistan to build a school for the children living in the Barek Aub camp, a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP). The people living in this camp fled during the fall of the Taliban regime and returned to their home to find nothing left but empty shells of houses and buildings and fields covered in land mines. Their home was now uninhabitable. The families traveled to Kabul in search of a new beginning, but the Afghan government eventually transferred the families to the area now called Barek Aub.


Baruk Aub means "broken water" or "fragile water" in Dari, one of the most beautiful languages I have heard (our office helped a Special Immigrant Visaholder from the northern part of Afghanistan). Water was originally delivered to the site of the camp, but half of it was undrinkable. In addition to the lack of clean water, the individuals living in the camp found it almost impossible to attain employment because of the remote location of their new 'home'. The families were quickly reduced to poverty at no fault of their own.

When you work with refugees, you see situations like this everyday- individuals and families forced to leave behind their homes, possessions, their life- because of someone else's war. Many of our refugees have faced extreme torture. Once they arrive in the United States, they often find it very difficult to adjust to the new culture. But one thing is abundantly clear: they want to begin again. They want to work, they want to be a part of the community, and they want to help others from their homeland do the same. Please understand that they don't necessarily want a hand out; they just want opportunity. It's the same with the individuals living in Barek Aub and all the others around the globe in similar situations. If you give them a chance, they will thrive.

Should we even care about what happens half-way around the world? As I mentioned in a previous post, the answer is a resounding yes. God is a just God who cares about injustice in our world, whether it is happening two houses down from you, or in the slums of South Africa, or in an IDP camp in Afghanistan. We are called to be His light, shining it throughout the world, including Barek Aub.

Please visit the SpendYourself website to read more about the people of Barek Aub and the efforts to help them. They will be adding more shirts to their line (I believe the next shirt will be benefiting a project in Africa), so be sure to check back often!