Alberta Street Fair, Aug 13

This weekend AWAZ will be at the Alberta Street Fair! This fun annual event boasts vendors, food, dancing, family activities and much more!

So head on down for a good time on Saturday, August 13 from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. The event is on Alberta Street from 10th St. to 30th St.

For more details, check out the street fair website.

Consumer Responsibility

A few days ago, we wrote a blog about Fair Trade growth and expansion across the nation, including the introduction of great new products. Read that post here. This is definitely good news, but the real take away from this should be the influence of everyday consumers like us.

The only reason Fair Trade has seen the huge growth explained in our last blog is that individuals have committed to purchasing Fair Trade products. Consumer responsibility means making the choice to support social and moral values with your dollar, even if there is little big governmental or industrial support. If you want to see more fairly traded products available, you must buy the ones out there now. This is the only way the movement is going to continue to grow.

For some inspiration, check out local writer Kym Croft Miller’s story about how her family went a year without shopping. In an effort to refocus their family, the Millers stopped buying all but essentials for an entire year.

Experiments like this are cropping up all over the country from churches vowing to not spend money at Christmas to families agreeing to buy nothing that comes from outside a certain mileage radius. More and more people are taking a very personal look at their shopping habits and their relationship to ‘stuff’ and finding it to be an empowering experience more often than not. If we can quell the impulse and desire associated with shopping, we will slow down and have the clarity to think about what we want and why we want it. Then we can exercise consumer responsibility and make purchases in line with our values.

We highly recommend watching the 'Story of Stuff' video to further examine our consumerism and what the impact is of all the 'stuff' we purchase. The Story of Stuff Project is an incredible resource!

Whether it is AWAZ products or not, we hope you will be thoughtful with your purchases and consider how everything from food to clothes to cosmetics that you use everyday can either support the creation of a more just world or further destroy equity and dignity. Please think about small changes you can make this week - even one product makes a big difference for the producer.

On Monday, the Grameen Foundation tweeted this quote from Mahatma Ghandi "Think of the poorest person you have ever seen and ask if your next action will be of any use to him." Making your next purchase a Fair Trade one can do just that, even if it is only a cup of coffee.

For more on how you can Fair Trade your lifestyle, keep an eye out for the Northwest Fair Trade Coalition’s upcoming blog series on incorporating Fair Trade habits into various aspects of your life.

Good News for Fair Trade

What's new in Fair Trade and where is it going? From recent news it seems that Fair Trade is growing and expanding to include more and more common products.

First, check out this article about how Fair Trade is expanding: "Why Fair Trade Imports Rise Even As Buyers Shun Other Eco-Friendly Products." The article explains that Fair Trade products have experienced rapid growth in imports since Fair Trade USA first began certifying coffee in 1998, leading to the expansion of the market and inclusion of more products from sugar to soccer balls (see below for more new products). The author speculates that the environmental protection aspect is not alone responsible for growth, but that people are mostly flocking to fairly traded goods because of personal stories and feeling connected to the producer.

Fair Trade Towns cites the following stats about the growth of fairly traded goods in the United States:

• Fair Trade sales increased 10% in the U.S. between 2007 and 2008 while, nationally, retail sales declined over 13%. Stable market growth in Fair Trade is attributed to socially and environmentally conscious consumers that consistently purchase in line with their values.
• Fair Trade accounted for $3.2 billion in sales in U.S. in 2007 (a 48% increase from 2006).
• Fair Trade comprises the fastest growing segment of the coffee industry.
• Originating in the 1940s, Fair Trade is not a passing trend, but a steadily growing market segment.

(from: http://www.fairtradetownsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2010/11/ftt_toolkit_final.pdf_)

Here are some new Fair Trade products benefiting from the growth:

Gold

Check out this story from Fair Trade Resource Network: "Fair Trade Gold Limited but now Available in U.S." In the article, author Larry Bohlen explains how gold is becoming the latest fairly traded product in the U.S. with several jewelry companies beginning to use the product, which promises better social and environmental conditions for gold producers.

For more, see this article from Abu Dhabi's English newspaper, The National, about the rise of fashionable fairly traded gold jewelry: "Fairtrade and Fairmined Gold."

Vodka

Yes, that's right, you can now fair trade your happy hour. The world's first Fair Trade spirit company FAIR, started by two Frenchmen, introduced a fairly traded vodka made from quinoa grown in Bolivia. The company also has two other unique and fairly traded spirits. According to the website, there are even four places in the Portland area to buy the products. Cheers!

Some more information:

• A good overview.
• An in-depth look at the history of fair trade Vodka and the story of the maker.
• A fun blog article including a Fair Trade cocktail recipe. Yum!

Cosmetics

In 2008, articles started coming out about how Fair Trade was spreading to cosmetics. Companies from India to the United States are feeling the pressure to clean up their act and source ingredients responsibly. Especially with high levels of concern over the health impacts of cosmetics and the recent introduction of the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2011 and the pressure of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, more and more companies are realizing that consumers want products that are safe to use and safe to produce.

To read more about Fair Trade cosmetics, check out this article. And this one from Redbook, about one writer's personal encounter with Fair Trade cosmetics - specifically look for Aveda's Uruku makeup line. The article lists a few other companies beginning to use Fair Trade ingredients too.

Around the world: An article from India about the fairly traded cosmetics market there and one about shea nut gatherers in Burkina Faso.

And finally, a local option... Portland-made SOLGAIA BAR

SOLGAIA BAR is a brand new granola bar made by Dana in Portland. Her philosophy is to make every aspect of her product as healthy for people and the environment as possible, so from the ingredients to the packaging to the (solar-powered) website, you can feel secure about everything about SOLGAIA BAR. Sarah picked one of these up at a coffee shop in southeast Portland. Check out the SOLGAIA BAR website for a list of all the places you can find them.

Good news for producers and consumers everywhere! The more fairly traded products that are available the closer consumers can be connected with where their products come from and be sure the producers are valued and treated with respect.

Purkal Youth Development Society

Purkal Youth Development Society is one of the organizations AWAZ Voice for Empowerment works with in India. We are so excited about what they do we wanted to share a recent update with you!

Purkal’s mission is to “enrich the lives of poor rural youth through education, and empower women through skill development, whilst at the same time preserve the beautiful Himalayan environment and local cultural traditions.” They do this through four main education programs, for pre-school children, school-age children, young adults and recent graduates, and adults. The society was started by the Swamy couple tutoring out of their home and has grown to this excellent education program diligently working to eradicate poverty and ignorance in their village.

Purkal also houses another of our partners, Stree Shakti that makes many of the purses we sell (see their products here).

However, Purkal's education program is truly exceptional. They operate a Learning Center that not only has classes and mentoring, but has a holistic focus and incorporates nutrition, fitness and health care into its offerings. They exclusively help the poor thereby focusing their resources on those who need them most, even including transportation and scholarships to private schools to truly improve the access to quality education.

In April, Purkal announced a new a relationship with their village. Traditionally, Purkal has been only open to the poorest in the community, but the village requested their education program be open to all students in the village for a fee, in exchange for a lease on 6,000 square feet of new property. Now Purkal has the opportunity to expand its education program and help many more students. They anticipate three or four more students each year to be accepted under this new program.

The Purkal Youth Development Society has truly harnessed the reality that education is the best road to lasting individual and community development, and they are applying this understanding with lasting benefits for more than 300 young people in their community. AWAZ is so glad to help with this empowering work and is excited about the new direction!

To donate to the Purkal Youth Development Society, visit http://www.purkal.org/donatenow.html. On the site you can choose to sponsor a year of a child’s:

• Food for $200
• Education for $489
• All needs for $730
• Or even an entire class of 21 for $19,550
• They have many other donation options with a variety of costs, including funding a meal for as little as $85

Visit their website for information about this great organization http://www.purkal.org/.

Northwest Fair Trade Coalition Discusses Economic Justice

Last night, the Northwest Fair Trade Coalition met to discuss future plans and events and how to build momentum for the fair trade movement in Portland. We were especially lucky to have guests from Jubilee Oregon and Oregonians Against Trafficking Humans (OATH) with us. Jubilee is a global debt relief movement and OATH mobilizes Oregonians to eradicate human trafficking in the state.

Some may wonder what these two seemingly different organizations would be doing at a meeting about the fair trade movement. However, as the meeting began, the conversation drifted to the broad issue each organization exists to address: economic injustice.

More and more we see the value of working together with like minded organizations to bring awareness to global economic justice issues on a large scale here in Portland.

All organizations present have recognized the inequality in the global economic system and are making efforts to change it. Fair trade groups such as AWAZ and Equal Exchange are working at the grassroots level – incorporating justice throughout the supply chain, starting from the bottom up at the level of individual purchases and improving the way those purchases impact producers.

Jubilee Oregon is working on the macro level, by focusing on relieving the unjust debt of impoverished nations. The debt that is often caused by corrupt governments, usurious interest rates and unfair requirements and systems are not allowing countries to be independent and take care of the needs of their people, keeping them endlessly in poverty without food, clean water and education, much less infrastructure.

Then there are organizations like OATH. OATH is dealing with the reality that economic injustice creates. When these impoverished nations have so little recourse and so few opportunities for advancement, the people’s desperation can create a powerful slavery. At its root, much of human trafficking is caused by severe poverty that traffickers take advantage of.

Creating partnerships like these, between social, justice, fair trade and other organizations will help grow not just a movement but a whole new global social system that empowers communities to be economically secure and culturally strong, thereby accomplishing justice and the goals of each organization.

We at AWAZ are excited to have these new partners on board and are grateful for the insights and wisdom they have already contributed. We look forward to our future working together.

To learn more about Jubilee and debt relief, visit http://www.jubileeusa.org/truth-about-debt/why-drop-the-debt.html for clear and compelling information.

OATH has an excellent explanation of human trafficking locally and globally and what Oregonians can do about it: http://www.mcso.us/public/human_trafficking/what_is.asp. Be sure to take their pledge on the home page too.

VOTE BY THE END OF TODAY TO HELP US WIN A PHOTO CONTEST!!

Fair Trade Resource Network is hosting a photo contest and you can vote for AWAZ to win!

Fair Trade Resource Network is a space to grow the fair trade movement through information and networking. They have a great site with tons of information and events -- http://www.fairtraderesource.org.

Right now, FTRN is hosting a photo contest and the top 12 of the 70+ fair trade photos entered will win a spot in the FTRN calendar! We have entered a photo Sarah took in India of one of the women who has turned her life around using Sadhna and their fair trade production.

The contest ends today, July 16 so make sure you visit http://www.fairtraderesource.org/link-up/photo-contest/ to vote. Thanks!

The Aurora Sunday Farmer’s Market is on at the Aurora Movement and Healing Arts Yoga Studio!!

AWAZ and other local food, art and craft vendors participated in the first day of the Aurora Sunday Farmer’s market July 3rd that took place in the parking lot of 3^rd and Main at Aurora Movement and Healing Arts Yoga Studio from 11-3.

Tasty foods and fair trade gifts were offered from local vendors that included Squirley Jane’s Hazelnut Butter and AWAZ Voice for Empowerment, and great organic produce was brought in by Galin-Flory Farms.

The weather was perfect for the first day market, as more people gathered throughout the day to explore what was happening in their neighborhood.

Aurora local, Jimmy Essien, and partner Monica Rudestam, opened up the new yoga studio last year, shortly after I moved to Canby in 2010. They’re experienced practitioners of yoga, Qigong, acupuncture, massage, Chinese medicine and other alternative healing and I was excited to see them move into town to inspire healthy living and community in one of Oregon’s cutest rural towns. I’ve enjoyed the pleasures of rural living over the last few years and thanks to the studio, have met many lovely, down to earth people from all walks of life to enjoy with.

Aurora is known as the antique capital of Oregon, well known for housing some of the greatest antique treasures from the days and families of the Oregon Trail. As a popular National Historic District, Aurora offers a unique story that you will want to experience! Settled in 1856 by a group of Christians who followed their leader Dr. William Keil from Missouri over the Oregon Trail, they formed the only successful 19^th century utopian community in the West.

The area blends utopian ideals with family farms to create an eclectic community filled with the young and old that is attracting a lot of young families. The area is home to Joni Harms, a well known local country singer, one of the biggest Oktoberfest parties located in Mt. Angel and an amazing Dhalia Farm in Canby.

The great antique shops, u-pick farms, St. Joseph’s winery, new yoga studio and Gluten Free Bakery, the White Rabbit, make Aurora an exiting tourist destination for those wanting to escape from the big city for the day.

The Aurora Farmer’s Market will be there every Sunday, all summer long from 11-3 – so come check out this cute little town and start with us!

I will try to make it to the market most Sundays, so if you’re coming to check out our amazing collection of eco-friendly and sustainable goods, just mail me in advance to confirm I’ll be there that weekend!