10-06-2010 | Posted by: Lonneke EngelThe Glammies, the Award Show organized by Dutch Glamour and Ici Paris XL, was a true happening!
I never really go to events in my home country of the Netherlands, but last Tuesday, me and my best friend Maruja (Who is also an OYL contributor) went to Paradiso in Amsterdam, the location where this event was held. Paradiso is a true Pop heaven, having bands like the Rolling Stones perform there in the past. Maruja had never seen it, so as she is about to sign a record deal, I told her she needed to see where she is gonna perform in the near future!
The pink carpet had some of Holland's most famous walk by, and even though the paparazzi is nothing like the ones in the USA, there were some, and it felt very glamourous!
Jetteke van Lexmond, a head stylist at Glamour, dressed me in this cute black dress by Carven. Her sister Lieke van Lexmond won Female Beauty Personality of the Year. ( Male Beauty Personality became dutch actor Barry Atsma)
The Glammies are a yearly award show, in which people and products are being honored. Best Fragrance for women became YSL Parisienne, and for men it was Boss Bottled (That had OYL's very own Marius play the lead in the advertising and commercial!) Tweezerman got a price, and also Lancome's Geneifique. That Glammy was accepted by Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann. ( who is also very committed to a better world by studying something like Environmental Science at a university in London. She is also a very very sweet girl!)
Performances by Paloma Faith and Jenny Lane were great!! These women truly know how to dress great, and have really good voices!
The afterparty was very nice! The cocktails were yummy (something with lemon?) and people looked amazing.
We went home with a goody box with all the winning products, and the new edition of Glamour in it.
Glammies: You rock!
09-05-2010 | Posted by: Anne-Marie Van DijkThis is a very special post, on a very special day.
Today is Mother's Day and I would like to dedicate this post to a very special organization that praises and honors motherhood around the world.
The White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) passionately works toward making pregnancy and childbirth safe in countries around the world.
Every year, according to the WRA "every minute of every day, a woman dies of pregnancy related complications."
According to Christy Turlington, who actively supports and is actively supported by the White Ribbon Alliance, 90% of those deaths are preventable.
I wish to honor all women, mothers and non-mothers alike, around the world and praise the WRA for making childbirth a little bit safer every step of the way!
~ Happy Mother's Day ~
05-05-2010 | Posted by: Anne-Marie Van Dijk
With a special thanks to Lonneke, Eyal and I were invited to a very special occasion - an introduction and sneak preview of Christy Turlington's first and new documentary movie, "No Woman, No Cry".
The event was attended by a nice group of people, including famous designer Diane Von Furstenberg and model Liya Kebede, who is also known for her tremendous charity work.
"No Woman, No Cry" is dedicated to addressing the lack of maternal healthcare in countries around the world leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of women each year while in 90% of those cases the deaths were completely preventable!!
It is shocking to learn about such high numbers when in fact, the technology is there. America alone has a high maternal death rate, but not just because there isn't enough maternal care....... ethnicity plays a role in this case with caucasian women having a higher chance of receiving proper care than women of different color.
This is shocking and deeply tragic.
If you feel as strongly as we do about this or would like to know more, visit the links below.
We, at OYL, will of course keep you updated when Christy's film comes out in the cinema!
In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful trailer - Eyal and I were especially touched by Christy's sincerity and devotion to the cause.
She stands behind every word she says and is a true 'ambassador' when it comes to maternal healthcare.
04-05-2010 | Posted by: Lonneke EngelLast week I went to Ouarzazate, Morocco. You get there by flying to Casablanca, and then onwards to Ouarzazate. This is a different world than I am used to that is for sure!
Ouarzazate, is a place in Morocco known for the big blockbuster movies that are made there. A few of them: Gladiator, Alexander, Kundun and the new Prince of Persia featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, and Sex and the City 2 have all been filmed here! I saw the whole set of the Prince of Persia movie when I was there, and even sat on a horse that was used in many movies!
I was shooting for a luxury Italian designer who is mostly famous for his cashmere, with a hug crew of about 25 people... I was far away from home with people I did not know at all!
For 4 days we were there, and spent the whole day together. You suddenly are very intimate with people you have never met. I sometimes find that weird, as you act like best friends for the days you work, and most of the time, don't see the people for years after that job, and sometimes you don't even see them ever again...
But nice friendships can evolve, and you definitely experience things together, that you will not forget the rest of your live. That is why I love my work, you go to amazing places, experience things you never imagined and build interesting relationships with the people you work with.
Back to Morocco: I ate vegetarian Tajines with local and seasonal vegetables everyday.(very healthy) I saw the most beautiful sand dunes I have only seen in movies ( and the sand dunes in the movies where exactly the ones I saw now). It was simply amazing. ( even though we had to wake up every day very early to catch the first sunlight, as the early sun and late sun are the best light for pictures).
We drove to Merzouga to shoot a bit more, a drive about 6,5 hours with stops included. It was far, but so worth it. That is where I saw the sand dunes, and camels for that matter. We stayed in an amazing "sand castle" a hotel named : Kashbah Timbouktou.
Driving past all the small villages, made me realize how lucky I am. People sometimes don't even seem to have the basic necessities. they live locally, and some will probably never leave the area they live in. Like the boys who take care of the camels there , camels used to have tourists ride them. They have a very special relationship with the camels, who follow them with every step they make. Some of these young boys also sell items to tourists, like bracelets and stones and fossils, which this area is known for. They learn english, italian and even dutch from tourists... That is their life, everyday, work in the desert. But it will be very unlikely that they will travel anywhere the rest of their lives....This is their life, and that is it.
I was amazed by the contact the locals have with nature. They don't complain, they just live with the heat, the sun, the sand. They don't seem to need much. They live on the streets. Animals like dogs, cats, horses and donkeys, seem to have a much rougher life too, than our pets that get organic food and go to the groomer every few weeks...
One more thing: I did notice in the afternoon you only saw men together on terraces enjoying tea( where were the women?). I do know where this comes from... but hey, I like to drink tea too!
We did have an "Arabian Night" one night with the whole team, and danced in the middle of the desert with music by locals. It was full moon, saw many stars and we ate great food, and had an amazing time!
Morocco was definitely a great experience for me, and it opened me up to a total different world, different nature, different people I am used to, and I am very grateful to be able to do that, and share it with you :)
I will add pictures later on the community!
in the meantime: Are you just as excited as me to see Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia? And Sex and the City 2, who both coincidentally come out on the same date: May 28th 2010?
00-00-0000 | Posted by: Lonneke Engel
23-03-2010 | Posted by: Irene DirksSpanish actor Antonio Banderas is appointed as a new Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development programme (UNDP).
He will focus on poverty and will push for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to halve world poverty compared to 2000.
“Poverty robs us of our potential as a people, preventing us from being all that we can be,” Antonio Banderas said.
The millennium goals are 8 globally agreed targets with a 2015 deadline
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day
- Achieve Employment for Women, Men, and Young People
- Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
- all children can complete a full course of primary schooling, girls and boys
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
- Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005
- All men and women have the same rights by 2015
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
- Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
- Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
- Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
- Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
- Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmenta
l sustainability
- Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
- Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
- Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
- By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
- Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system
- Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries
- Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States
- Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term
With only less than five years to go there is still a lot of work that needs to be done!
Let’s all wish Antonio Banderas good luck in his new role.
12-03-2010 | Posted by: Irene DirksIt’s Friday afternoon and I was discussing my plans for the weekend with my colleagues.
Somehow we landed on the subject of beer.
And it reminded me of the most interesting beer I ever drank.
MONGOZO beer!
I was at a summer-festival last year and there was this stand of interesting looking drinks.
Served in half a coconut!
Apparently they were beer with five different exotic flavors:
Coconut, Quinua, Palmnut, Mango and Banana.
My favourite was Quinua flavored.
Maybe you can imagine how pleased I was walking and dancing around with my delicious beer in a coconut.
I felt on a summer holiday although it was raining almost all day!
As it turns out while looking at their website, there is a really interesting story behind these beers!
"Mongozo means ‘to your health' in the native language of Henrique Kabia, one of the founders of Mongozo beer.
The language is that of the Chokwe people who live scattered throughout Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It is the Chokwe women who have been brewing the beer for their people for more than two centuries.
Before they started brewing beer, they used to make wine using palm nuts. It was one of Henrique Kabia's distant great-grandmothers who was responsible for bringing about a great change in the eighteenth century: instead of making palm wine she began making palm beer.
Over the course of the centuries her secret recipe was handed down from mother to daughter. Henrique's mother brewed palm nut
beer too, but had no daughters. She therefore decided to break with tradition and initiate her son into the mysteries of brewing beer.
That same recipe was Henrique's only possession when, in 1993, he arrived in the Netherlands as a refugee. The recipe formed the basis for a new and exotic beer line, with which a whole new dimension was added to the European beer tradition.
The five Mongozo flavors unite the ingredients, recipes and drinking traditions from corners of the world as diverse as Ghana, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Brazil.
Four of the five exotic Mongozo beer bear the Max Havelaar/Fairtrade logo.
And Mongozo also uses many organically certified ingredients in its beers."
I think that makes this beer taste even better!
(source: mongozo.com)
08-03-2010 | Posted by: Lonneke EngelTODAY IS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!
Every year on March 8 it’s international women’s day
The first international woman’s day was declared by Clara Zetkin at the international woman’s convention in Copenhagen in 1910. Reason for this was the massive strike on the 8th of March in 1908: 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.
After that, every year on March 8th, people in several countries would hold marches and conferences about women’s issues.
Unfortunately the 1st world war ended this custom.
With the feminist movements of the sixties the interest in the Women’s day returned and in a lot of socialist countries like China, Armenia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Vietnam it’s an official holiday and has a status equal to mother’s day.
Throughout the world there are many events today:
One of them is tonight’s premiere of the movie Desert Flower in Amsterdam
This movie is based on the biography of internationally famous supermodel Waris Dirie.
In this book she tells her story from being born into a nomad family in Somalia, about being circumcized at only 5 years old! How she escaped her family when she was to marry a very old man, and eventually moved to London and that's where she, while working as a cleaning lady in Mc Donalds, was discovered as a model.
Waris Dirie became an UN ambassador for the abolition of female genital mutilation, and since then raised her own foundation (www.waris-dirie-foundation.com)
I’ve read her book a few years ago and it moved me very much! Seeing this movie will definitely be on my list for things to do this month!
by Irene Dirks
