If he has everything, if it’s the right size, if she’ll like it… Giving Christmas presents can sometimes be a hassle. But we don’t have to buy for the sake of buying. We can give gifts in a conscious, responsible and caring way. Junior product manager Sara Casals gives us some tips.

With solidarity gifts you will always get it right and there is as much variety as there are non-governmental organisations, social entities and federations in the world. To start with, the gift can be a solidarity card with which we make a donation on behalf of a third party. But they can also be gifts, because these organisations usually have online shops where they promote their cause with merchandising. Here is a list of some of them:

• Arrels Fundació, a dignified work. This organisation, which supports homeless people, has been helping them for a long time through an occupational workshop, where they make a wide range of products. In their shop you will find a lot of objects made by people in vulnerable situations. This year, they have also opened a physical shop in the centre of Barcelona, La Troballa, where you can find all their products.
• Proactiva Open Arms, against the refugee crisis. The NGO that rescues people at the gates of Europe, in the Mediterranean Sea, has a shop where they sell all kinds of merchandising products, but where you can also find special gifts, such as tickets to solidarity concerts or gift cards to support their cause.
• Botiga solidària de Sant Joan de Déu, the double gift. In this solidarity shop you can give two gifts in one: you will make the person who will receive the gift happy, but you will also help all the people who need to be cared for. You can find everything from socks to wafers, bracelets, notebooks, boxes of chocolates and sweets, and even corporate gifts.
• Top Manta, the diversity shop. A good number of street vendors in Barcelona, fed up with police persecution and exhausted by the obstacles to regularising their administrative situation, founded Top Manta, an ecological, diverse, solidarity-based and designer brand. They have exclusive clothes made by renowned designers and illustrators and their latest model of bamba, the Ande Dem, has been a bestseller. 

Search the internet and find many more: the hospital clown association Pallapupas, the José Carreras Foundation against leukaemia, Amics de la Gent Gran, AFANOC against childhood cancer… The list is endless, but we encourage you to explore it all!

11Onze is becoming a phenomenon as the first Fintech community in Catalonia. Now, it releases the first version of El Canut, the super app of 11Onze, for Android and Apple. El Canut, the first universal account can be opened in Catalan territory.