About Us

World You Need is Love is an online fair trade store founded by Melanie and Sofia Alves. Customers can buy sustainable products, handmade by artisans around the world. The store intends to give an opportunity to designers from all over the world to expose their products to the Portuguese market.

We practice fair trade principles, and every purchase made at the World You Need is Love concept store will help communities around the world, either because we buy from those communities directly, or because our partners produce their products there fairly. Working through cooperatives, social enterprises, our artisans improve the quality of life of their communities in different ways: business classes, health programs, literary programs, ....

The idea came up during Sofia and Ivo Tavares' trip around the world, to photograph weddings, and show that love is present all over the world. They took the dog Duna with them and it was more than 9 months of many adventures that can be followed on the blog.

We are an independent non-profit company. All profits generated will be retained in World You Need is Love and will be used to purchase more products or expand the number of artisans we work with.

With extensive experience in the retail market, daughters of the country with small businesses, we know that every purchase can make a difference. It is during Sofia's nearly year-long journey that both sisters come up with the idea of pooling their knowledge and experiences and creating something meaningful that could bring more love to the world.

All the photographs on this page are by Ivo Tavares and their rights are reserved. Our thanks for the availability of the material.