Peace Coffee is a 100% Fair Trade coffee company with all the right ideas. Fair Trade. Organic. Sustainable. Local. And delicious. The Global Exchange Online Store has been carrying their coffee for quite some time and staffer Zarah is a fan of their Guatemalan Dark Roast.

We wanted to share their story showing everyone that Fair Trade really is a viable business model. Watch their story.

This December, spend your vacation harvesting social justice in Nicaragua. Take a Reality Tour trip with Global Exchange! Participate in a transformative travel experience with Global Exchange and work with a Fair Trade coffee cooperative to experience the other side of the struggle for social and economic justice.

Global Exchange is sponsoring several highly motivated individuals to travel to Nicaragua this harvest season and work with a Fair Trade coffee cooperative (CECOCAFEN). Fair Harvesters will live with a cooperative member family and work alongside farmers to harvest coffee, learning by participating in the daily lives of small-scale farming families and beginning to understand the meaning of Fair Trade producers. This is a unique opportunity, and Fair Harvest is not intended to be a tour or tourist visit, but rather to be a lived experience that will motivate the participants to be committed activists when they return.

It’s Halloween time, and there are lots of ways to get involved in making sure that the cocoa industry is less scary and more fair for cocoa farmers worldwide. Here are two good ways to get involved:

Fair Trade Trick or Treat Action Kits:

Find everything you need for Halloween this year, all in one place. Give more than candy this year…give knowledge about the importance of Fair Trade! First launched in 2005, the Fair Trade Trick or Treat Action Kit in 2007 includes chocolate candy to hand out to Trick or Treaters, a large stack of festive Halloween postcards for you to hand out, traditional Papel Picado Mexican party streamer, and a Trick or Treat Bag.

Reverse Trick or Treating:

This Halloween, it is kids who will be giving treats to adults! On Halloween night, 2007, schoolchildren, high school and college students across the US and Canada will unite to end poverty among cocoa farmers and forced/abusive child labor in the cocoa industry, and promote Fair Trade, by distributing information about these social justic issues in the cocoa industry, while Trick-or-Treating door-to-door in their communities. For information, please visit the Global Exchange Fair Trade Campaign page.

The Online Store’s Abby Edelman recently visited the Idna Ladies’ Association in the remote town of Idna, in the Palestinian Territory. The association uses the traditional Palestinian cross-stitch technique to embroider a wide range of products. The association provides vital income to its’ 45 women members, very often they are the only source of income for the household. The construction of the Separation Wall between Israel and the West Bank, in 2005, has lead to devastating unemployment throughout the region. The Wall’s trajectory runs through Idna, isolating the most fertile parts of the village’s agricultural area and underground water. More than 50 families have lost their olive groves and grazing land for livestock due to the wall. The visit to Idna is an example of the Global Exchange Online Store’s continued commitment to representing marginalized artisan groups throughout the world.

Hot of the press, Building the Green Economy is a book co-authored by Kevin Danaher, (Co-founder of Global Exchange), Shannon Biggs and Jason Mark. Building the Green Economy shows how community groups, families, and individual citizens have taken action to protect their food and water, clean up their neighborhoods, and strengthen their local economies. Their unlikeley victories-over polluters, unresponsive bureaucracies and unexamined routines-dramatize the opportunities and challenges facing the local green economy movement. This book is available through our website, so grab yours today!

Pictured above, some Darfur weavers at work.

In an effort to bring our customers even closer to our producer groups, the Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store brings you the Featured Producer Section. Set to launch this fall, the goal of the section is to spotlight crafts producers who have a particularly compelling story and outstanding products. The first product will be the colorful Handwoven Basket from Sudan. These one-of-a-kind baskets are created by women basketweavers living in an internally displaced persons camp in Kalma in the Darfur region of Sudan. The Darfur region has been engrossed in a complex conflict since 2003, leaving half a million people dead and over two and half million people displaced. Those that have been displaced within Sudan are living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. Since 2004, The Craft Center at CHF International has been working with the Sudanese people living in these camps. Kalma, the largest camp in which these basketweavers live, is home to over 100,000 people displaced by the conflict. Women in these camps are often left vulnerable and with no way to support their families. In response, CHF International has implemented mat and basket weaving projects to ensure that women living in the camps are able to participate in improving their own lives, while simultaneously preserving their vibrant cultural traditions. This project not only provides the women of Kalma economic opportunity, but it also creates a space where the women can share their stories and begin to heal together.

Listen to what the women have to say about the project:

~”When I first arrived [at the camp] a year and a half ago, there weren’t any services like [the basket weaving project]. We had to leave the camp frequently and many women were attacked. We feel safe inside the center and now have some money to buy goods and supplement the food rations we receive.” -Zulafa


~”[Coming to the women’s centers] gives us a chance to be with other women and talk about our problems. We can laugh and forget the hardships we have suffered.” -Victoria

Photo of children from the Batsiranai Craft Project showing off their dolls.

Lynn Poole from the Batsiranai Craft Project visited our workplace the other day. Batsiranai is a cooperative of mothers with disabled children living in Dzivarasekwa township in Zimbabwe. Before getting down to business, Lynn showed a slide show to us all. Having worked with Lynn for three years now, I am aware of the wonderful work her group is doing. But it doesn’t hurt to get a visual reminder of its impact now and then. While watching the slide show and listening to Lynn’s stories, I tried my best to not to lose it. I felt happy to be doing the work that I do, but so sad to be reminded in such vivid detail why this work is so important and how much further we have to go. It’s hard to grasp that 1 in 4 people from the village where Batsiranai operates has AIDS, many of them children. Not to mention, the amount of orphans is daunting. And all the while, this group has to hope and pray that another government cleanup isn’t around the corner, ready to demolish their craft center yet again. The word “Batsiranai” translates from Shona language to mean “helping each other.” Helping each other is just what this project is about – the women work together to support each other emotionally and help their families economically through their artistry in handicrafts. From our meeting, it was decided that Global Exchange will start offering a few Batsiranai products at wholesale rates when we launch our wholesale program this Fall. Among those products that will be offered at wholesale rates will be the Zimbabwe Twin Dolls, which are by far one of my favorites on our site! Each is one-of-a-kind, and the name of the doll maker is featured on the hang tag.

If you or someone you know has a business and wants to start selling these amazing dolls, keep an eye out for our upcoming new wholesale program this Fall!

Written By: Tex Dworkin, Manager of the Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store

Pictured above is our Fair Trade Valentine Action Kit.

HUNGRY FOR CHOCOLATE FACTS?

*According to the International Labor Organization, more than 284,000 children work on West African cocoa plantations in “the worst forms of child labor.” *60% of these children are under the age of 14 It is estimated that Fair Trade chocolate represents less than 1% of the world’s roughly $60 billion chocolate market. *According to the Chocolate Manufacturers Association and National Confectioners Association, in 2005 more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate were sold for Valentine’s Day.

FAIR TRADE VALENTINE ACTION KITS

Each Fair Trade Action Kit includes a stack of retro-inspired Valentines to hand out, a heart box of Fair Trade chocolates, and more! Everything you need to start spreading the word about Fair Trade chocolate to those you care about this Valentine’s Day.

If you would like to learn more about Fair Trade chocolate, visit our fair trade campaign page

The gangs all here, taking a moment away from the holiday frenzy of packages, shoppers galore and non-stop work to pose for the camera. Murphy and Henry the dogs are of course an integral part of the team!

Thanks to all of our new and longtime customers. Thanks to you, our holiday 2007 far exceeded our expectations. Because of you, the world is a better place!

Have a Peaceful, Happy New Year!
From all of us at Global Exchange.