Gaia USA

 

Chicago

See also: Gaia-movement Trust (Switzerland)

                 Green World Recycling (UK)

                  U'SAgain     (Tvind company in US, also Chicago)

                  Garson & Shaw (Tvind company that sells clothes collected by Gaia)

                  Gaia statement

The 'Gaia' name is a new one for the Teachers Group, in use in England and the United States (and perhaps other countries).     Money raised for Gaia is supposed to be used 'for the environment'.   In fact, Gaia's Swiss office is an accommodation address and mail is forwarded to Tvind's office in Amsterdam.

 

Helle Lund, one of the managers of Gaia in north America, was previously company secretary and director of Humana UK  -  the British charity closed down in 1997-8 by the Charity Commission after an investigation of its finances. (December 2000)

Eva Nielsen

Elton Davis

 

     Independent on Sunday, London  Charity's recycling claims mislead public  (17th December 2000.)

     Wisconsin State Journal:    Recycling Group Meets Resistance  (7th April 2002)

Madison City recycling officer George Dreckman declines to assist Gaia Movement Living Earth Green World Action USA, after a complaint about Tvind from environmental group Sustain Dane. 

 

 

Shops:   

            2918 N Clark Street, Chicago, 60657  (tel (773) 348 4405)

            1318 North Milwaukee Avenue

Manager: Helle Lund (2000)

Also at Gaia: Eva Nielsen (2002)

Drop-in boxes

            Drop-boxes at 7-Eleven convenience stores and in gas-station parking lots.

 

 

A correspondent writes:  I chatted for a few minutes with the very sad, depressed-looking, wasp-ish woman who told me she ran the Clark Street store, though she was not very forthcoming otherwise.    I asked her questions based on information in a photocopied brochure they have available.   She told me in very general terms that this was an ecologically concerned organization based in Switzerland, that they had reserves of land all over the world they were trying to preserve (I'd asked her if the group was like The Nature Conservancy, an international group that purchases pristine wilderness on a contract to hold it for posterity), she said they were working to save the rainforest, but when I pressed, "The rainforest in Brazil?," she smiled politely and genuinely and said kindly that she didn't really know, that she just ran the store and didn't have a lot of information.

She mentioned that they were going to open a store in Madison, Wisconsin, soon (Madison is home of University of Wisconsin, great place to recruit lots of innocent, idealistic students with lots of $$ to spend on "adventure travel").        She mentioned that they have drop-boxes at 7-Eleven convenience stores and in gas-station parking lots.

The used clothing prices at the store were pretty well outrageous for used clothes!!! While it is in Chicago, and I'd expect they'd be higher than I'm used to in other places, I don't know how they sell anything! 

There was a sign on the door of the store that they hold a youth drop-in night, I think Fridays, with an HIV-AIDs discussion group.    This is a neighborhood with a large number of runaway kids. De Paul University is very close by, and Loyola is not far, great places to recruit.

Gaia's manifesto, as circulated in Europe:

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