50:50 – £50 Ethical Shop Vouchers to be won

50 years of the New Internationalist Magazine and fifty £50 Ethical Shop gift vouchers to be won.

I started working at the New Internationalist Co-op in May 1994. I arrived in Oxford for my first day and remember clearly all the 20 year anniversary stationery lying around the New Internationalist office. In those days we had no email and everything was done by letter and fax. As I now tap directly onto an online form to write this blog, it seems strange to think that these bits of paper were essential for our work. After a few days in the job I moved up to Oxford from London and now almost 29 years later, the New Internationalist is in its 50th year. What an amazing achievement for a radical independent magazine. I feel lucky and proud to be linked to the Co-op. My home is Oxford, my children have grown up here and through the magazine, I’ve met hundreds of dedicated and hard working people all fighting for environmental and social justice.

The reason I write is that the team at the Ethical Shop have come up with a way to join in with the anniversary celebrations and also add a bit of fun. We’re giving away fifty £50 shop vouchers over the next year. All you have to do is sign-up to the Ethical Shop enews list and your name will be entered into 5 separate draws over the next few months. To be honest we’ve decided to do this because as well as a bit of light relief, it makes business sense. Building up an email subscription list is a good way to help promote the shop and keep in touch. And the better the shop does, the better the New Internationalist magazine does. If you’re not on the enews list already then sign-up here. If you are already on the list, why not get a friend or family member to give it a go? They’ve got a pretty good chance of winning a £50 voucher.

When I joined the Co-op, the magazine that was going through ‘production’ in spring 1994, was ‘Squeezing the South’ edited by Richard Swift. It explained why shady organisations like the World Bank and the IMF, while in cahoots with banks and corrupt governments, pushed SAP’s (Structural Adjustment Policies) on the world's poorest people. The title was ’50 years is Enough’ because these institutions had emerged at the tail end of the Second World War and were almost in their 50th year. It’s depressing that not much seems to have changed with the vast gap between rich and poor since I read that issue. And in terms of the environment things are getting much worse. But the latest magazine in our 50th year (a year running from March 23 to February 24) attempts to look to the future and at what the world could look like. It’s the March-April 2023 issue and titled a 'World to Win':

“As New Internationalist turns 50, we’ve set our sights on 2073 – what kind of world do we hope to see

when we hit our centenary? And what are the pathways to get there? 

At the heart of most struggles for justice is the desire for a better world. We don’t just need solutions;

we need the courage to imagine they will succeed, and the collective will to make them happen.”

Please subscribe or buy a copy of the magazine as a way to support us and our networks and remember to give the 50:50 competition a try too. You can buy great presents with your voucher, stock up on eco household goods, or you could simply get a box of organic pasta to fill your shelves to last the rest of the year!