Helping Artisan Cooperatives Get Their Start

At a book discussion at the Ten Thousand Villages in Pasadena, California recently, I was asked a familiar question along the lines of, "How do you help craftswomen enter the Fair Trade market?" Many folks, whether volunteers with groups like Peace Corps or Catholic Relief Services or backpackers who stay in a community awhile, develop close bounds with a community and want to help them use their talents and skills to create products under Fair Trade terms.  The Fair Trade skin care company Anti-Body is an example of committed entrepreneurs working with their partners in Africa to develop products and get them to market.

Inspired their example and the history of Villages founder, Edna Ruth Byler, I like to encourage these new enterprises, but with a clear eye to the challenges of the handcraft market.  Luckily there are many professionals who do product and cooperative development for a living.  I'm sharing a recent announcement from Aid to Artisans about a training available this summer to help producers and importers develop market readiness.  

And while we are talking about building capacity, on my to-do list is to reach out to Oikocredit a leader of microfinance and a leader in Fair Finance.  If you are interested in borrowing money under fair terms to work with producers you might want to research the Oikocredit requirements and criteria. 

I hope these two leads help those helping producers become Fair Traders!

Intergenerational Support of Fair Trade

In the wake of World Fair Trade Day--did you hear more than 12,000 North Americans participated in the World's Largest Coffee Break??? Check out the slide show!--I am brimming with blogging ideas. Also, this weekend I saw episodes of the Tracey Ullman show, State of the Union, on Showtime and I now have a wacky desire to be match the work of Arianna Huffington. I mean if she blogs daily, shouldn't I????

But I have this "order in which they were received" attitude about email messages, and a friend alerted me in early May that the AARP Bulletin recently featured Fair Trade shopping as a way to be economically smart. Initially I kind of winced because sometimes "outside of the industry" blurbs about Fair Trade can be riddled with errors. I was surprised to find on target comments like, "Generally, fair trade products cost the same and sometimes less than mass market items, because the large percentage taken by the middleman is removed from the equation. For example, FTC coffees and chocolates are generally priced competitively with specialty coffees and chocolates—but they are more expensive than mass-produced varieties."

As more people start looking carefully at their personal budgets, I wish we would take this as a wake-up call to reflect on our consumption patterns. Can we fixate less on the price of a gallon of gasoline and more on why we drive so much? Why don't we take these moments of economic uncertainty to consider life priorities, economic justice, and care for the planet?

Absent those kinds of queries, if the American Association of Retired Persons wants to promote Fair Trade as a way for seniors and others on fixed income to be frugal, so be it! In fact, the premise of the article is "you can save the world by changing your shopping list." Saving the world is a motivator for many age groups. On my travels I have certainly met many a retiree who is making Fair Trade advocacy a second career....let's welcome AARP and to the movement!

A little bit of Fair Trade irony

I'm processing a wonderful set of experiences in California this past week. Before I post any reflections about participating in the (hoped for) World's Largest Fair Trade Coffee break with the San Diego Friends of Fair Trade, traveling across the border to Tijuana, and debating Fair Trade at UCLA along with members of Fair Trade LA, I'll pass on this bit of levity in a video clip from Comedy Central. The Brits have long been ahead of the United States on several of the Fair Trade fronts. This is just another example that they "get it," courtesy of comedian John Oliver. The video reminds me of the classic, if somewhat more sardonic, written piece from the Onion a few years back. Enjoy but maybe also reflect: are there one too many "ouch" moments in that piece?

Here's to not taking ourselves too seriously even as we work on some pretty serious issues. And a toast to treating the person right next to us as well as we want farmers and artisans treated!

World Fair Trade Day: How Will You Participate?

Just four days left but it is not too late to participate in World Fair Trade Day this Saturday, May 10. I just placed my order for Fair Trade Certified flowers as a Mother's Day gift for the best mom in the world (okay, I am biased) and I'm finishing up preparations for my trip to California to participate in World Fair Trade Day activities (see more details in the post below). I'm encouraging my colleagues at CRS headquarters in Baltimore to participate in the World's Largest Coffee break by handing out a bunch of postcards produced by my friends at Fair Trade Resource Network. Check FTRN or one of its sponsors out for details on how you can get involved. Really, if you can brew a cup of coffee or tea YOU can participate or maybe even attend an activity in your community.

As this year's theme says: Isn't it Time We Made the World Fair?