Fair Trade Federation Conference

Well....I just finished my 10 day long trip to DC and it was a rewarding experience for me. Between the two conferences I met a wide variety of people who challenged me to look at my activist work and focus a bit more narrowly. I will begin with my 3 day Fair Trade Federation conference.

I was able to meet all kinds of people involved in the fair trade movement from wholesalers to a producer coordinator from Guatemala to interior designers and financiers (who understand the special needs that fair trade people have) to newly graduated students looking to find their place in the movement. The founder of Ten Thousand Villages, Paul Myers, was the keynote speaker and he was very thoughtful in his speech on the future of fair trade and how we need to be deliberate and careful about mainstreaming our concept. This is a real concern of mine and there are some serious impacts involved in mixing fair trade into publicly held corporations.

I discovered a lot about myself in this conference. I have recently been challenging what my role is in having a fair trade shop. I am not a natural-born salesperson and given my interest in being an activist, I am not well-suited for sitting in a store for several hours a day (as many of you can attest when trying to visit my shop and seeing a closed sign...my apologies to you all who have encountered that) when I could be out educating the public on the concept of fair trade. I come from a long line of educators and believe that I have been given the gift of teaching (I just cannot do it in the formal "institutional" sense). The difference between an effective teacher and an ineffective teacher is the ability to convey your message well. This is where I lack confidence. Somehow I must become more comfortable speaking publicly and I need to find a way to earn a "living wage" doing it.

Back to the conference.... It was great being there with my vendor, Allen Joseph, from "Living Wage Co." and meeting his brother Rich from Wisconsin who were there promoting the fair trade gift card. This is a great advance forward for the fair trade marketplace because it gives people the ability to give this gift card to friends/family members who can use the card in a fair trade shop near them (provided the shop is set up to accept the gift cards).

The weekend was full of individual workshops as well as general panel discussions that took place intermittently. They were very informative and one special guest panelist from MayaWorks in Guatemala (and native Guatemalan), Mirian Otzin, who had a translator help her commuicate with us about what the producer groups are doing to bring our marketplace their lovely crafts and how fair trade wages have improved the lives of people in her area. I was deeply gratified to hear how important fair trade is to the people in her country. What we, United States citizens, need to understand is one very important fact about fair trade which is that when people in 3rd world countries are paid a living wage, they are able to stay in their homeland and thrive instead of fleeing for economic reasons and adding to the immigration issue that seems to have a grip of fear across our country. If you want to stop the flow of immigrants coming across our borders then stop buying "free trade" products that are paying poverty wages and support fair trade.

Without a doubt the more interesting of the two conferences for me was the "Taming the Giant Corporation" held the second weekend in June. I will spend more time sharing the notes I was able to take on the various topics that were discussed (as much as I could write down).

Stay tuned!

peace,
mindy