Postcrossing Blog

Every year, Postcrossing collaborates with the Singapore Philatelic Museum with one very special exhibition. But it’s not just every year, it’s every Chinese new year! The exhibit celebrates the Chinese Zodiac animals: Year of the Rat, Year of the Ox and, the current one, the Year of the Tiger.

A few month ago, we have requested Postcrossers from all over the world to send them postcards with tigers that they used to display in their exhibition: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Danger. And, as always, Postcrossers have excelled in their contribution and offered a shower of postcards.

Mishelle at the Musueum shared some photos that we now share with you all:

Happy Year of the Tiger! :)

On April 22nd it will be Earth Day 2010 and, in a time when climate change is becoming more serious than ever, it’s important to not let this day go by unnoticed.

Postcrossing is collaborating with students in Tuvalu in a very special event around the Earth Day 2010 in which you can participate too – and it’s really easy, read on.

But first, for the ones who may don’t know where the country Tuvalu is, here’s a short summary from its Wikipedia page:

Tuvalu

Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls. Its population of 12,373 makes it the third-least-populated sovereign state in the world.

From all the important facts about Tuvalu, there’s something particularly important that you should: due to global warming and the rising of sea-level, there are predictions that in the next 50 years the entire population will have to be evacuated. The ocean can swallow Tuvalu whole, making it the first country to be wiped off the map by climate change! Isn’t that scary?

Tuvalu students certainly think it is, and so do we. Postcrossing is proudly collaborating with them in this year Earth Day to help spread their word about how important it is to reflect and act upon climate change. The project is called “Send Tuvalu to the world” and consists on sending 422 postcards to all over the world sharing their thoughts about Tuvalu. The students organized a painting contest to draw a special stamp to be used in all the postcards, so these are very special indeed.

How would like to receive one of these postcards from the remote islands of Tuvalu? We know many of you would, so here’s how:

Just leave a comment on this Postcrossing blog post saying you would like one. We will then select the receivers from the first users of each country until we reach the needed 422 addresses. There are many possible slots for each country, so be sure to leave a comment! We will then share your address with the organization of this event in Tuvalu and the students will send your way one of this very special postcards.

It’s really simple to participate. But also very important, is to be aware – more than ever – about climate change, what it is doing to our planet, and what we should do about it.

At Postcrossing HQ we are always looking for ways to do good through postcards. Today we are happy to share with you a simple but very powerful way to ignite big smiles.

Hearts in Unity is an organization working towards improving the life of orphan and at-risk children in Tanzania. Through several projects, they aim to feed, clothe and give access to education to Tanzanian children as well as tell the world more about this African country, one of the worlds’ poorest with over 2 million orphans.

One of Hearts in Unity projects is Messages from the Heart which consists in bringing heart-felt messages of greetings, friendship and encouragement to Tanzanian children. And what better medium for that than a postcard?

The Hearts in Unity representatives in Tanzania hand-delivers those messages to those who need them most, many in remote villages where there isn’t even postal delivery services. This is the only way for some of those children to have contact with postcards and receive greetings from somewhere else in the world.

We believe this is a great match for Postcrossers, who understand what a postcard can do to lift our spirits and bring some encouragement.

If you wish to participate in this cause, this is the address where you can send postcards to:

Hearts in Unity
P.O. Box 6497
Moshi, Kilimanjaro
TANZANIA

For sending anything other than postcards such as parcels, donations or enquiries, please use this address instead:

Hearts in Unity
“Messages from the Heart”  
P.O. Box 41
Germantown, WI  53022
USA

You can use this address as well if you are in U.S.A. and wish to save some postage. The correspondence will be forwarded to Hearts Tanzanian representatives as well.

If you need ideas about what to write, or even how to write a message in Swahili, check Messages from the heart project page.

Please note, that Tanzanian children don’t have a way to send postcards back – an international stamp can cost more than half of a family’s average daily wage in Tanzania. However, Hearts in Unity also has a penpal project. In fact, they have many other projects, so be sure to check their website: http://www.heartsinunity.org/.

Happy 2010!

While half of the world has already put away their celebratory hats and champagne cups, some are still stocking on fireworks for another big celebration… the Chinese New Year! On February 14th begins the Year of the Tiger… which means… it’s time for another exhibition at the Singapore Philatelic Museum!

On previous years, these collaborations resulted in amazing exhibitions (Year of the Rat, Year of the Ox) and so, once again, the museum is asking the Postcrossing community for submissions. This time the theme is, of course, tigers! You can mail your postcards and/or stamps featuring these big felines to:

Mishelle at the Philatelic Museum promises to reply to all the cards received till February 10th, so what are you waiting for?

Happy Year of the Tiger! Xin nian kuai le!

It’s in days like today that the power of a simple postcard becomes obvious. The World Lupus Day is celebrated today across the world, and thanks to many Postcrossers who kindly joined our LupusCrossing project, many smiles are being lit right now and many more will be created!

An impressive total of 251 butterfly postcards have flown from Postcrossers to the hands of Lupus patients, coming from many different countries. LupusCrossing has been a great success and we couldn’t be more thankful for everyone that participated on this project. The messages sent from all over the world were overwhelmingly kind and full of hope, as you can check yourself in the German Lupus Association website where all the postcards are displayed. We are very proud to have contributed to make the Lupus patients days into happier ones. The world is a better place to live thanks to Postcrossers.

Simone from the German Lupus Association has reassured us that Lupus Patients will have access to the butterfly postcards and their nice messages, plus they will make their best to show them throughout their 80 regional groups in Germany. Moreover, and as promised, they will send thank-you postcards to 3 randomly chosen senders of each country that participated, plus to a few hand-picked ones. So, if you have sent a butterfly postcard and wrote your address in it, a postcard might be heading your way soon!

And if you wonder how all the butterflies look together, here are some photos of them:

(click to enlarge)


(click to enlarge)

We are certainly looking forward for similar opportunities to make someone’s day a brighter one, if you have some ideas, please let us know!

Happy LupusCrossing!