THEIR STORY - Vieri's sustainable Earthbeat Foundation

For this week we interviewed the Earthbeath Foundation. Guya is one of one of our designers (Vieri) and is the founder of this wonderful foundation. The Earthbeat Solutions Foundation, founded in 2013, aims at creating a future-oriented, sustainable and environmentally friendly use of the raw material gold.

Why was the Earthbeat Foundation established?

25 to 30 million people, including 1 million children, are working in gold mines under bad conditions. These violations of human rights, such as illegal logging and child labour are just a few of the issues that happen during gold mining. Because gold mine workers are constantly exposed to highly toxic chemicals this comes with fatal consequences for them and their environment.

The Earthbeat Foundation's goal is to support the people in small gold mining regions to build a self-determined life.

What do you mean by sustainable?

Gold mines are usually located in remoted areas because of the heavy machinery and used chemicals. We do a lot to find alternatives in the gold mining industry, where nature can recover from human intervention. It is important that we treat nature in a respectful way: sustainability and environmentally friendly. In addition it holds that it has no impact on the environment and people. We asked Guya for that reason for the reason of this dedication to sustainability.

'We believe that luxury depends on sustainability, which is why we see this as an increasingly important topic. There are too many people in our society who do not know enough about the conditions in gold mines. Our purpose is to raise awareness with the foundation. Above all, we want to end the harsh and brutal conditions in this industry.'

In what way are you committed to sustainability?

Comitted as we are, we would to create an alternative and sustainable income concepts for the gold miners. The "heartbeat honey" project for instance enables workers to find a new environmentally and friendly workplace.

What is your dream goal with the sustainable foundation?

There does not exist a perfect gold mine. By using secondary gold from electronic waste instead of mining new gold, we replace small scale mining with urban mining. Our main goal is to help create new possible workspaces for those working in the mining industry, ultimately benefitting nature and people. Neither should lead to gold mining. It is therefore our wish to end this small scale mining.

If you want to know more about this sustainable foundation or if you want to help by donating, you can go to the website via this link.