World Fair Trade Day

Very few people in Peru know about fair trade.  So it was great to see fair trade organizations in Lima come together on World Fair Trade Day to celebrate the event.  Despite some competition and tension between these organizations, they came together under the banner of the World Fair Trade Organization and set up a booth at a small business fair to raise awareness about fair trade.  Alison and I did a shift at the booth for several hours and spoke with many people.  To my knowledge, no one we spoke with knew about fair trade before we spoke with them.  Twelve years ago, when I began working in fair trade in the US, the experience was similar (though not to the same degree).  Very few people then had heard of the concept or term fair trade.  Although I don’t have statistics at hand to share, the recognition in the US has grown substantially through education and an expansion of fair trade products available in the market.  Perhaps Peru will have a similar experience.

Here is our booth.  Organizations represented at the booth were Raymisa, Manos Amigas, CIAP, Minka, Allpa, and Aptec.

Alison's Spanish is much better than mine.  She did most of the talking although after hearing her enough times I gave it a try as well.

While Simon was sleeping, I chatted with Fermin, a jewelry artisan who is also helping to organize Aptec, an artisan-led fair trade organization.

Yannina at Manos Amigas is excited to educate about fair trade.  To celebrate World Fair Trade Day, she also arranged for Alison and I to give presentations in one of the area schools.  Yannina was especially excited because she had been a student at this school and was pleased to be returning as an adult and sharing about her life’s work.

I spoke to a class of about 30 high school students with assistance from Yannina and Alison spoke to another class of 30 high schoolers with the assistance of Rosa, one of the artisans Manos Amigas works with.  In both cases, none of the kids had heard of fair trade before our presentations.  I led my class through an activity that is part of a fair trade curriculum created not only by another high school student but also a Global Gifts volunteer.  

Me giving my presentation.

The class broke into small groups and each group was responsible for making an item using only the materials they could purchase from me.  I charged a lot for the materials and offered very little for their products.  "Hey, that's not fair!" was the comment I heard that served as a starting point for a discussion about fair trade.  I was truly impressed with what these kids came up with using a cardboard box, tape, scissors, markers, and a few sheets of paper.

Alison and Rosa in the school courtyard after their presentation.

It was a great experience and I think the kids in the class really came away with an understanding of what fair trade is about.  Yannina was excited enough to suggest that maybe next year we could do something with another school in Lima but with my and Alison’s involvement being over Skype.   It’s a big challenge, but poco a poco (little by little) awareness of fair trade is being raised throughout the world.