RED POWER TIE

I had the opportunity to serve as a judge at a law school, mock trial competition recently. And while the students were all quite good, the scene was remarkable because all of the male students wore a red tie, what has now come to be known as the red power tie. The problem is because they all wore the red tie, it lost its power. The red power tie is now as ubiquitous as a Starbucks on every corner. And, the problem with a Starbucks on every corner, is the ease of access to a good cup of coffee. Starbucks does an effective job of “fair’washing” their products and advertising – they finally make mention of TransFair USA, and you will find the following on their website:

“How You Can Help

Buy Fair Trade Certified™ Coffee

We highly recommend bold and roasty-sweet Café Estima Blend®.”

Easier said than done, if you’re aiming to buy a cup of coffee and not a package of beans. At last count, they sold 30 types of whole bean coffee, one of which, is FairTrade certified. Cafe Estima Blend is brewed up ONLY once a month at your local Starbucks.

Let’s lose the old ways, including the red power tie and the slave driven coffee and go out of your way, for a responsibly brewed cup of coffee to go with that new tie!

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THE INVISIBLE DIVIDEND- HOPE & PRIDE & DIGNITY

 

THE INVISIBLE DIVIDEND- HOPE & PRIDE & DIGNITY

Take 2 minutes quick, clear Fair Trade explanation.

MORNING COFFEE & KISSES

     You want to your choices to matter -in fact, you want to matter, to someone, to the world, for a legacy, to be remembered kindly. We all do – it is the blessing and the curse of the human condition. Everyday you make countless choices- get up, buckle up, show up. Walk past the guy on the corner with his hand out…or not. Call your friend, make those calls for charity, call your mom – or not. It’s not easy navigating this sea of consequences.
Drink coffee? Do you brew at home, grab a cup at the fast food place with your croissant, stop at Megabucks?

     Some choices are easy. Choosing fair trade ensures the growers get a fair price for an honest days work and also, that they are not taken advantage of by the price-fixing of multi national corporations.

     Want a kiss with your coffee?  If you want to sweeten your morning with compassionate, kisses, don’t buy Hershey’s.  they’re well-known for exploiting children and using slave labor to produce their sweet kisses.

     Consider Kallari, an Ecuadorian cocoa/chocolate cooperative in the Amazon.  They are saving the Rainforests, the land and they formed a co-op to save themselves.  Read about them here : http://www.kallari.com/

and also in the MSNBC story below.     

 

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#30194143

Fair trade-sweet!

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RESONATE WITH FAIR TRADE

HOW YOU DO ANYTHING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING

You may have heard that phrase, attributed to many, often said in yoga classes and diametrically, personal coaching sessions…but, there is a certain resonance to it, if you think about it.   Once we are of an age to make mindful decisions, our choices are defined by our character.  Ponder whether you live your life in a manner in which, if it were all dissected, placed under a microscope and then broadcast to world, you would be OK with it.

You give to your favorite charities, you coach the Little League team, you let a car get in front of you during rush hour -all good.  How about those non-public, unseen choices we make a million times a day.  Do you zone out when your friend/colleague is sharing her pain relating to her husband/son/mother/daughter,  or her own.  Are you glancing at your watch when someone is sharing their new, exciting (to them) news?  Do you allow it to register that at least 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10.00 a day.  According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

By now, you’ve heard the term Fair Trade.  Your  fair trade certified purchases affirm that it matters to you that the people who produce the commodities you purchase, receive a fair compensation for their labor.  When they receive a fair  wage, their children can go to school and break the cycle of poverty that envelopes their community.

HOW YOU DO ANYTHING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING.  Buying fair trade coffee, chocolate and other products affirms that you are who you are claiming to be.

FAIR TRADE: IT MATTERS-SUGAR IN YOUR COFFEE

As recently  reported by the Chronicle’s David Kaplan, Paul Rice, founder, president and CEO of Fair Trade USA, was in town recently to attend a coffee exposition. His organization — the leading third-party certifier of fair trade products in this country – certifies coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa, fresh fruits and other produce, and has partnerships with more than 800 U.S. companies. Its biggest partner for sugar is Wholesome Sweeteners in Sugar Land.

Today, similar gains are being made in developing countries all over the world, many of them extremely modest by our western standards, but vital to improving the lives of millions of rural farmers and workers. And a modest outlay on fair trade goods by ordinary people can go a long way, as Fair Trade USA is aiming to illustrate.

It invites Americans to participate in World Fair Trade Day by enjoying a fair trade breakfast: A cup of fair-trade coffee can help build a women’s clinic in Rwanda; a fair trade-certified banana will help send an Ecuadorian child to school; and that fair trade sugar in your muffin will help a small co-op in the Philippines to adopt organic farming methods.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/7564281.html#ixzz1MW6AKgoN

RAISE A CONE BEN & JERRY’S

In honor of WORLD FAIR TRADE DAY, raise a cone to Ben & Jerry’s, making ice cream fair and fun!

FAIRTEA TEATULIA

This delicious tea is grown in the Teatulia Cooperative in Bangladesh.  The coop focuses on alleviating poverty through humanely raising cattle, adult literary education and health and hygiene programs for all.  Their program is single-garden – direct , meaning their teas come directly from their garden, the first USDA Certified Organic garden in Bangladesh where they use “natural farming” , no pesticides or unnatural irrigation instead letting Mother Nature encourage growth which rejuvenates the earth.

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OK- too much information???  You can buy Teatulia from their website http://www.teatulia.com/index.html  and Amazon.com for starters.

Feel good about your tea!!!!

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COFFEE’S DARK SECRET

At the Specialty Coffee Association of America Convention, 2011, (SCAA.org), I had the honor to sit down with Rick Peyser*,  Green Mountain’s Director of Social Advocacy & Coffee Community Outreach, about an issue that had  him questioning his decades long career in the coffee industry.  In 2007, while visiting with farmers in coffee producing villages such as in Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua, he learned the gut wrenching fact that  for a large part of the year, “after the harvest”, coffee farmers experience “the thin months”, a time when there is not enough money left  feed their families.  This phenomenon was largely untalked about but 67% had were food challenged 3 -8 months out of the year.  

Fair Trade is a great start but what is needed, he said, is Fair Trade Plus, basically, ramping up the core values and beliefs of Fair Trade and enhancing them with the empowerment to give coffee farmers not only a fair wage but the ability to feed their families year round.

Rick said when he finished the last interview in 2007, it hit him, it could be his family.  It could be any of us, really.   Please watch this trailer and think about donating the price of one cup of coffee ( a week of wages for a coffee farmer), to the cause.

*Rick Peyser has been with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters for over 21 years.  He is a past President of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, and currently serves on the Coffee Kids™ Board of Directors, the Coffeelands Landmine Victims’ Trust Advisory Board, and the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International (FLO) Board of Directors, which sets the international standards for Fair Trade that benefit over 1,000,000 small-scale farmers around the world.

FAIR TRADE COFFEE- WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Here’s a short explanation on how making the fair trade choice positively impacts the local farmers and the global coffee market.  from Ten Thousand Villages   a pre-eminent source for all things fair trade.

How does fair trade coffee affect the global coffee market?