Beilul protesting to end sweatshops June 2013 Photo Credit: Global Exchange

Beilul Naizghi protesting to end sweatshops June 2013 Photo Credit: Global Exchange

The following Fair Trade Roundup was written by Global Exchange Fair Trade Summer intern Beilul Naizghi.

This issue focuses on Global Exchange’s World’s Finest Campaign and reminding you to vote in the Fair Trade Resource Network’s photo contest, plus the vetted list of Fair Trade related articles below in the “News to Peruse” section.

Roundup Sections:

  1. Featured Fair Trade Updates
  2. Global Exchange Fair Trade Update
  3. Fair Trade News to Peruse

Fair-Trade-Calendar1. Featured Fair Trade Update:

You have one week left to vote in the Fair Trade Resource Center’s Photo Contest! The 12 winning photos will be featured in the 2014 Fair Trade Calendar, with the most voted photo on the cover. The contest ends Tuesday July 9.

WorldFinest_color-in450px2. Global Exchange Fair Trade Update: World’s Finest Campaign

For the past few years Global Exchange has been working with schools, churches and community groups from around the country to pressure World’s Finest to stay true to its fundraising legacy by purchasing at least five percent of its cocoa from fair trade cooperatives.

With an estimated annual sales of over $110 million, World’s Finest ranks among the eight largest chocolate companies in the U.S. and has sold nearly six billion bars. Meanwhile, approximately 66% of children working on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast don’t attend school because they’re busy toiling in unsafe conditions.

If World’s Finest were to start buying Fair Trade cocoa, our hope is that more Fair Trade cocoa farmers would be able afford to send their children to school and pay adult workers instead of employing children.

What can you do? Help us send World’s Finest a message by signing this online petition urging World’s Finest Chocolate to go Fair Trade!

Fair-Trade-News3. Fair Trade News to Peruse:

THE FAIR TRADE ROUNDUP AND YOU!

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First place entry. photo by Hope Gardens

After weeks of gathering photos and over 1,500 votes in a week, the top twelve Fair Trade photos have been selected for the 2011 Calendar.

Hope Gardens submitted the first place photo and will have the honor of gracing the cover of the calendar.

Other winning entries include photos of Fair Trade rice farmers in the Philippines, daughters of cacao farmers from the CONACADO cooperative in the Dominican Republic, and weavers in Guatemala.

One entry I am particularly excited about is the one of Nicaraguan School Children taken by Mark Van Wormer. The photo was taken in 2008 during a Global Exchange Reality Tour delegation in Nicaragua that I also happened to be on. The Reality Tour was a life-changing experience, and I am sure it was as well for Mark. He captured many photos from the trip, but this photo is particularly significant because it is a direct example of the positive benefits of the Fair Trade system.

Children of Fair Trade Coffee Farmers. photo: Mark Van Wormer

From Mark:

Children in La Carona, Matagalpa, Nicaragua, get to attend school and have other benefits because their parents belong to the CECOCAFEN cooperative and get better prices for their crops. Since they live on their farms, these children are not exposed to the pesticides and other chemicals that are more typically used on non-Fair Trade crops.

This Reality Tour to Nicaragua is called Fair Trade & Alternatives to Neoliberalism and gave us participants the opportunity to see first hand the positive effects of the Fair Trade system by bringing us into the homes of coffee farmers and seeing the positive transformation in their community with the participation in the Fair Trade system. I highly recommend going on this trip.

Congratulations to Mark and the rest of the winners of the Fair Trade calendar photo contest! Find out more about how to obtain the calendar on the Fair Trade Resource Network website.