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21 April 2010
Posted in
3) Spring Celebrations
- Fair Trade Choices: Importance & Availability
- Local Fair Trade Supporters & Vendors
- JUDES: Fair Trade Awareness & Events for Fair Trade Weeks
- Fairly Traded or Non-certified Fair Trade
- TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles & ‘Fair Traded'
About a year and a half ago, just after our inception, we did a short piece about Fair Trade. At the time, it was winter. And when it’s cold outside, people reach for hot coffee.
And also, Valentine’s Day was coming up. And nothing says Valentine’s Day like chocolate.
So we were compelled to write about “Fair Trade” and about some of the absolute atrocities that take place in the growing and harvesting of coffee and cocoa beans; as well as during the effort it takes to bring their related products to market.
With the upcoming World Fair Trade Day on May 8th, 2010, we thought it would be worth summarizing.
We wrote about “Fair Trade Certification” and “Why You Should Choose Fair Trade”, and provided a list of “Local Roasters” and “Fair Trade Cafes”, which we subsequently lengthened this past winter (2010) with “More Fair Trade Cafes & Coffee Commitment”. Here’s a little bit more on the subject below, as well as some newer groups in the promotion of Fair Trade living:
Fair Trade Choices: Importance & Availability
Ultimately, we think supporting Fair Trade endeavours and products is extremely important, whether it be for coffee and chocolate, for teas and sugar, for bananas, or otherwise.
What tends to get lost in decisions to choose Fair Trade products, or not, is that on the other side of our hot coffee or mouth-watering chocolate bar, are people. These ‘people’ often times pay the price for our indulgence when it is not of a Fair Trade nature. So as it has been said, the non-Fair Trade indulgence makes for a “bitter-sweet” experience.
Local Fair Trade Supporters & Vendors
As mentioned above, luckily for us here in the greater Halifax area, there are many local cafes AND roasters that DO support certified Fair Trade coffee, chocolate or other products (as cited in links above). Of course the “granddaddy” of them all here in Nova Scotia, and even in Canada, is Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-operative, founded in 1995, with Java Blend coming on board next in Halifax, and being licensed by TransFair Canada to roast and distribute Fair Trade coffee a few years later, in 1999.
The point is, you have options AND choices to make next time you want to indulge in a hot cup of java or other products.
JUDES: Fair Trade Awareness & Responsible Purchasing
A more recent addition to the vocal and active support of Fair Trade endeavours in the greater Halifax area is JUDES. JUDES is the Just Us! Development Education Society, “a non-profit organization based in Nova Scotia that raises public awareness of fair trade and responsible purchasing.
By providing educational resources and facilitating partnerships, JUDES builds solidarity between consumers and small producers across the hemispheres with respect to social, environmental, and economic justice.”
JUDES works to “strengthen the understanding and links between producers and consumers”, through a variety of hands-on activities, educational exchanges, and events. In fact, they have a number of activities taking in celebration of Fair Trade weeks, from May 1st to May 14th, 2010. Visit their website as well as the CRUSISIS Sustainable Events calendar for more details.
Fairly Traded or Non-certified Fair Trade
Although it’s important to look for certification of products to ensure they truly are Fair Trade, a movement exists as well where goods are “fairly traded” or termed “fair trade products”, without the official certifications and typically capitalized trademark.
As always, some undeserving groups are trying to take advantage of less stringent requirements enabling their participation in the “fairly traded products” suppliers network, and are touting themselves unjustifiably as such.
Therefore, if you are inclined to support a “fairly traded product” in lieu of a “certified Fair Trade product”, be sure to research the suppliers to ensure their practices are indeed deemed to be “fair”. Also, it’s worth noting that legitimate groups are often supportive of, or take part in co-ops specifically set-up to help facilitate more fair and humane trading practice, which could serve as an identifier of groups truly operating in a “fairly traded” fashion, of a non-certified nature.
And you don’t have to shop at Ten Thousand Villages necessarily to have the option to buy Fair Trade or ‘fairly traded’ products either. Even some large commercial chains are beginning to carry products supporting such initiatives. A bracelet brand sold in commercial stores called Zulu Sport, is a new line by The Leakey Collection, a member of the Fair Trade Federation, to provide opportunities to Kenyan women. There are also some local vendor options as well such as TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles (below).
So again, whether you’re looking for coffee, chocolate, tea, sugar, bananas, clothing, hand-made gifts, or otherwise, you have “fairly traded” options, and if you choose, Certified Fair Trade ones as well.
TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles & “Fair Traded”
A local Nova Scotian group dedicated to promoting the manufacturing of fair trade products from women’s co-operatives in Thailand is TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles.
In support of World Fair Trade Day, TAMMACHAT is hosting a show and sale on May 8th in Halifax, NS. We’ve attended a show and bought some of the clothing and giftware they purchase from the women of Thailand, to sell here. The pieces are lovely and unique. And the craftsmanship is incredible.
Much of the products are made of woven silk, generated from silk worms they raise themselves. Ellen Agger, of TAMMACHAT has traveled to Thailand with her partner Alleson Kase, and visited with the women artisans from whom they buy their products. She writes about the beauty of the experience and women they meet, true artisans though and through, who live for their textile manufacturing and weaving craft.
Has this resonated? “They raise the silk worms needed to generate the silk for their weaving.” It sort of leaves you breathless when you think about it. It’s difficult to grasp the depth of the fundamentals with which they work for their craft: helping the worms to cocoon, to capture the silk, to weave a scarf... It’s beautiful really... born directly from nature to product. It’s so simple, yet so deliberately involved. We would struggle for the patience required to perform this work here in North America, and forever long for the ability to take great pride, as these women do, in such crude, raw, rudimentary and ‘Beautiful Weaving’ work. (Click for more by TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles, accounts from their trips to Thailand and to see the splendid, colourful work in pictures.)
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