Michelle Williams continues to expand her brand and make a name for herself in the entertainment industry with a new reality series, My Sister’s Keeper. Produced and distributed by Entertainment One (eOne), the series will follow Williams’ journey of writing and recording her third Gospel album, and other aspects of her life.

“I am very thrilled about this opportunity, to extend into television with the eOne family as well, with this series,” she said in a release.

“Working together on my new gospel album and television series, I am excited to share with everyone a behind-the-scenes look at the inspiration and journey of recording for the album, performing, fun family times and other unforgettable experiences out together with my dear sisters.”

One of those sisters sang alongside Williams in a gospel group, United Harmony. Destiny’s Child fans may remember a mini reunion that Williams had during an interview with Ananda Lewis on MTV’s TRL. Fans will have to watch the show to see what musical surprises, if any, the Williams sisters may be cooking up.

“We’re very excited to expand upon our relationship with Michelle on this new collaboration that will provide fans with a peek into her everyday life,” said Tara Long, Senior Vice President of U.S. Alternative Programming.

“eOne’s versatility across all pillars of entertainment from music, film and television through development, production and distribution enables us to offer comprehensive multi-platform opportunities for our partners.”

Williams’ career in entertainment spawns more than a decade. She got her start as a background singer for R&B singer Monica in 1999 and joined Destiny’s Child in 2000.  Alongside Beyoncé Knowles and Kelly Rowland, Williams traveled the globe, selling out shows and collecting major music awards. In 2002, however, she branched out and forged a solo career.

On April 16, 2002 Williams released Heart to Yours via Sanctuary Records and Columbia Records. The album was well received by critics and performed marginally well on the music charts. Do You Know followed in 2004 and featured appearances by former band mates Knowles and Rowland. Knowles and younger sister Solange also wrote and produced on the album. Again, the album received positive reviews. The album did not perform as well as its predecessor though. In 2008 Williams ventured from gospel music and issued a dance/pop album titled Unexpected.  The album was a commercial disappointment. It is Williams’ lowest selling album to date.

In 2003 Williams made her Broadway debut in Aida, replacing Grammy-winning singer Toni Braxton in the lead role. The year 2007 saw Williams star in Oprah Winfrey’s The Color Purple, followed by a ground breaking, historical portrayal as Roxie Hart in Chicago in 2009. Williams is the first woman of color to take on the lead role. In 2011, Williams made a brief departure from the Broadway stage to act in a David E. Talbert play, What My Husband Doesn’t Know. Broadway fans saw Williams return to them in 2013 with a role in Fela!

In addition to being a singer, songwriter and actress, Williams is also a philanthropist, designer and a minority owner of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky.

Image Courtesy : Michelle Williams

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Otavalo is one of the most important markets in South America. It is located in the city of Otavalo in the Imbabura Province of Ecuador. The town shows colonial architectures, with narrowed streets. The people known as the “Otavaleños” have conserved their traditions with perseverance, exposing their culture and beliefs proudly.

The town encloses approximately 50,000 inhabitants and it is located on a precious site, by being a city enclosed and surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, such as the Imbabura 4,630m, Cotacachi 4,995m, and the Mojanda volcanoes.

The inhabitants are mainly indigenous, followed by mestizos and a small percentage of afro-ecuadorian. The indigenous people are mainly dedicated to the production and commerce of textile crafts, meanwhile the others focus on different activities such as stores, transport, tourist services etc.

In the market you will find colors, textures and handcrafts. Hammocks, shigras, ponchos, sweaters, hats, necklaces, tablecloths, earrings, bags and many other crafts are the center of attention for tourists as well for native people that come to the market in order to buy these amazing products at great prices. The indigenous crafts give great recognition to otavalos at an international and national level. The products of ancestral origins are a strong factor for the local economic sector since the products are made for markets abroad.

One of the great things to notice is the clothes for women. The vestment consists on white embroidered blouses, with flared lace sleeves, followed by a black skirt with a cream or white underskirts. The women’s long black hair is tied back with a colorful ribbon that matches the band of their waists. Their necks are also decorated with beautiful necklaces made of strings of gold. Men wear much simpler clothing, just using white trousers and dark blue ponchos.

The native language of the Otavaleños is Quechua, commonly known as the primary mother-tongue of the Inca empire. It does not have any similarity with the Spanish language, although some words from Quechua have been introduced and incorporated into the Spanish language, such as Ñaña (sister), Taita (father), achachay (expression to denote a feeling of cold), and chacra (farm).

Music has been a primordial sector in Otavalo. Since the town is also recognized as being the wedge for artists and compositors of Ecuadorian music, it has served as musical contribution with indigenous folkloric groups, with national and international trajectory.

There are many forms of transportation for getting to this town, the easiest way being by bus. From Quito, there is the possiblility to take the interprovincial buses, known as the Transportes Otavalo and  Los Lagos, which arrives directly to the city of Otavalo.

rebvt / Shutterstock.com

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Have you ever looked in your closet and realized that you had so many clothes that you didn’t even wear? A former Harvard Business School student, James Reinhart, looked into his closet and tried to solve that problem. By launching a web-based company to make swapping adult clothes easy called ThredUp, Reinhart also realized that adult clothing was not the right market to enter.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Reinhart realized that right market to tap into was kids’ clothing. Reinhart stated, “Once you start dipping into the data, it turns out to be a $6 billion-a-year market.” According to U.S. Agriculture Department data and a survey of 412 mothers conducted by ThredUp, the average American spends approximately $14,300 on clothes and grows out of about 1,300 items by the age 17.

As a kid-to-kid clothing swap service, San Francisco based ThredUp was re-launched in April 2010 and has tapped into a secondhand market. As a member on the ThredUp site, sellers follow a two set process: package 15 “new to you” items in a box and input the items by brand, gender, size, and style on the site.

The purchaser or “thredders” can easily purchase the 15-item package for only $5, not including the cost of shipping, and contribute to the “thredding” processing by selling their own items one day. To gain access to newly posted boxes, shoppers can become premium members for only $30 a year. Instead of buying secondhand, Reinhart estimates shoppers can save $50 per box using ThredUp swapping clothing.

As of July 2010, ThredUp has signed up nearly 200,000 members across the U.S. with a growing rate of 1,000 members per week. ThredUp members not only spend a total of over $8,000 per day on shipping but also have given the company a chance to recycle more than 50,000 pounds of clothes.

Expanding into toy sway last December, ThredUp members begin trading children’s books just last month. With millions in investment led by Red Ventures and the former EBay Chief Executive Officer Brian Swette as advisor, ThredUp may enter at least one European or Asian market before the end of 2012 says Reinhart.

SwapBabyGoods.com and Zwaggle.com are other sites that encourage the swapping of kids clothing. The three competitive advantages ThredUp exercise are the opportunity for their members to have access to thousands of boxes of goods instead of goods just from one use; prepaid mailing labels and empty boxes directly to users’ homes; and the reduction of postage due to packaging several items together.

According to Neal Gordenflo, publisher of the online magazine Shareable, ThredUp has “cracked the nut and proven their model works…and that the swap business can be scaled up.”

Eventually ThredUp will enter different markets beyond swaps, Reinhart says, “The American mom is the most powerful consumer in the world. In a world where we have a lot of moms who are just an e-mail away for us, there are a lot of opportunities.”

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Amnesty International, the British non-governmental organization, and the international shop ‘Women Secret’ have released an advertising campaign by selling t-shirts and shorts around the 320 shops that they have in Spain, with the objective of supporting those women who suffer gender violence.

With the motto “You can´t keep gender violence as a secret,” the lingerie shop wants to donate around 40.000 Euros (around 55,500 dollars) to this NGO so that they could use it to support the gender violence cases.  Starting this month, this campaign will be available until the next summer.

This mini collection includes three shorts and three t-shirts with positive and solidarity  messages on it that encourage women to say “no” to gender violence. The garment, made by the designer Little is drawing, also includes a yellow logo from Amnesty International.

As the Women Secret´s chairman, Jaume Miquel, stated at the advertising campaign presentation in Madrid the chain is really worried about gender violence because they have around 1.150 employees, and at least 1.000 of them are women.

Miquel has also claimed that they did this campaign last year in Portugal with excellent results. What they did in the shop window was to announce for a short period of time ads with the motto “Coming up in 15 or three weeks” and the word ‘Secret’ covered by  a yellow tape, so people could just see the word ‘Women’ with a candlelight next to it.

On the other hand, the Amnesty International chairman´s, Ana Rebollar, pointed out that gender violence is “the most popular Human Right´s rape, because one of three women is hit, and is forced to have sex with her husband or boyfriend”.

Rebollar also wanted to highlight that according to the World Health Organization, the 70% of women who suffer from the abuse die due to gender violence episodes. This is the first death reason among women between 16 and 34 years old.

The non- governmental chairman also added that gender violence should be recognized by law as a “big crime”. Rebollar also stated that “in Spain the legislation doesn´t guarantee the victim’s protection and it doesn´t take care of the immigrant women that die on average five times more than the Spanish women”.

Today, ‘Women Secret’ has shops in 48 different countries all over the world and you can find it online at women’secret.com.

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