One gallon of reverse-osmosis purified drinking water dispensed into your reusable container: 35 cents.
One pair of those chinos that don’t make your butt look fat: $19.99 (on sale, of course).
Knowing you or your kid doesn’t have to work in a sweatshop: priceless.
When it comes to knowing why consumers should care about purchasing fairly traded goods, it’s not always an easy sell. Times are tough. Why should someone on this side of the world worry how someone on the other side of the world is making their ends meet? Maybe because the separation between here and there is not as far as you think. Everyone loves a sale. Would you love it as much if you knew your slacks cost more than the person who sewed them makes in a year?
Explaining Fair Trade in digestible pieces, in a pleasant environment, is the goal of the American Friends Service Committee and its annual Women and Fair Trade Craft Sale and Cultural Event. Now in its sixth year, the fair features handmade pottery, jewelry, clothing, and textiles by eight artisan cooperatives, including Jolom Mayaetik, a 300-member, women-run cooperative founded in 1996 and featuring work from the Highlands region of Chiapas in southern Mexico. In addition to selling their wares at the fair, members of Jolom Mayaetik and other cooperatives will give their firsthand experiences of how Fair Trade works and how they came to create an alternative work life outside the sweatshop system.
“We have seen that the creation and use of collective spaces for women allow us to develop relationships of a more equal nature, both within our communities and the larger public,” wrote Jolom Mayaetik’s Celerina Ruiz Nuñez in press materials for the event. “Our work contributes to the development of a more just society.”
The fair takes place Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 21-22, 10am-6pm, at 1221 E. Sixth. Music will also be on hand, as well as food, a raffle, and information booths from area activist organizations. Each day closes with a traditional Ethiopian Banu coffee ceremony. A related cultural arts lunch will take place Saturday at 2pm at Karibu Ethiopian Restaurant & Bar, 1209 E. Seventh. For more info, go to www.womenandfairtrade.org or call 474-2399.
This article appears in November 20 • 2009.