What would your ideal world look like?

Are your actions adding to or detracting from that vision?

Almost everyone agrees that they want to live in harmony with the planet and its peoples. Why, then, do we live in such a destructive way?

We believe this disharmony exists because the connection is rarely made between our individual actions and global problems. Otesha chooses to promote sustainable consumption because it makes this connection clear. It involves everything from shutting off the tap, to researching different companies' ethics, to rethinking what we really need.

We seek to promote positive behaviour changes through the following process:

1. Removing the blinders: showing the many problems that are afflicting the world as a result of our over-consumptive society .

2. Holding up the mirror: recognizing the role that we all play in creating many of these problems.

3. Empowerment: showing, through real examples, that just as our actions have the potential to do harm, they have the potential to do good--incredible good!

4. Action: dishing out innumerable ideas for fun, everyday, world-changing actions that anyone can take to work towards the kind of world they want to see.

It doesn't stop there. Just as each action taken, no matter how small, has a direct positive impact on the world, it also fuels what we call the "action-empowerment loop". That's right--each action you take will cause you to become more empowered, and this will in turn spur more action, and thus more empowerment, and so on. So watch out, with each loop that starts spinning, there's no knowing what will happen next... perhaps something as crazy as a team of young people biking across Canada? How 'bout an entire forest being preserved because people start using that other side of the paper? Maybe we'll see the appearance of thousands of different fair-trade certified products, because so many consumers are demanding them! The possibilities are endless, and they start with us!