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October 31, 2008 | Morning Edition |
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 Reality Tours eNewsletter | CONTRIBUTE TO GLOBAL EXCHANGE |
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Dear Friends, Global Exchange Reality Tours have helped thousands connect firsthand with other peoples and cultures, and to return home with a deeper understanding, a sense of empowerment, and the tools to affect change. Given that October is Fair Trade month, we would like to inform you of some exciting upcoming Reality Tours based around Fair Trade, as well as some other important actions you can take today to promote economic and social justice. Here is what you can expect to find in this newsletter: **** In today's global economy, where profits rule and small-scale producers are left out of the bargaining process, farmers, craft producers, and other workers are often left without resources or hope for their future. Fair Trade helps exploited producers escape from this cycle and gives them a way to maintain their traditional lifestyles with dignity. **** Nicaragua: Fair Harvest Exchange Program
This December, spend your vacation harvesting social justice! Participate in a transformative international travel experience. Global Exchange is sponsoring several highly motivated individuals to travel to Nicaragua this harvest season and work with a Fair Trade coffee cooperative (CECOCAFEN). Fair Harvesters will live with a cooperative member family and work alongside the farmers to harvest coffee. You will learn by participating in the daily lives of small-scale farming families and begin to understand the meaning of Fair Trade producers. This is a unique opportunity to experience the other side of the struggle for social and economic justice. Fair Harvest is not intended to be a tour or tourist visit, but rather to be a lived experience that will motivate participants to be committed activists upon their return. For more information, please contact Sneh.
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Argentina: Building Economic Justice from Below
With abundant natural resources and a thriving middle class, Argentina was once considered the Europe of Latin America. In the late 1970s, however, a brutal military dictatorship wreaked havoc on the country, causing the death and disappearance of over 30,000 individuals. Democracy was finally attained in the 1980's but the country's economy was in ruins. In the 1990's, acting as the poster child for the neo-liberal economic policies of the IMF, the Argentine people were told that they would soon become part of the "first world". On Dec. 19 and 20, 2001, however, the bottom fell out. All the banks were locked denying people access to their own accounts, and the people watched as the Peso, along with their savings, was devalued to a third of its original worth. Citizens all around the country took to the streets banging their frying pans and chanting "que se vayan todos" or "throw them all out" for the removal of the corrupt government. For more information, please contact Leslie. ** Israel/Palestine: Fair Olive Harvest The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has ensued for sixty years, while Israel's forty year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the longest in modern history. Travel to Palestine and Israel and learn how fair trade cooperatives are restoring hope, providing economic alternatives to a population under occupation. Harvest olives with fair trade farmers, use organic farming practices, witness the community building strengths of fair trade cooperatives and cultivate a greater appreciation of Palestinian traditions, food and people. For more information, please contact Sanaz. ** Guatemala: Fair Trade vs. Free Trade
Join Global Exchange for a Reality Tour exploring how U.S. fair trade activists and women's cooperatives in Guatemala are working together to use fair trade to advance local development efforts in Latin America's most impoverished communities. We invite you to travel to Guatemala to meet with artisan cooperatives and affiliated grassroots NGOs. Visit and work with these cooperatives that are providing fair wage employment and a support network to women, many of which survived violent repression during Guatemala's civil war. Trip participants will learn about each community's history and the local development projects funded through their fair trade sales in the U.S. In contrast participants will witness the negative impacts of the free trade model in the region. For more information, please contact Sneh. ** Mexico: Chiapas: Tierra y Libertad In January 1994, Chiapas Mexico, the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was met with one of the largest uprisings led by indigenous in Mexican history. The purpose of the uprising: to bring attention to the precarious living conditions of indigenous people and the potential for deeper impoverishment and marginalization with the passage of NAFTA. For more information, please contact Sneh. **** Reality Tours San Francisco: Sanctuary City? November 13, 2008 San Francisco opens its arms to immigrants as a Sanctuary City, but did you know that right now undocumented workers are slaving away in hidden sweatshops? $75 fee includes: Register now! Space is limited To sign up, contact Blaine Clarke: **** Don't have the time or finances to join us at this time on a Reality Tour? Still want to make a difference and support the Fair Trade movement? If so, we invite you to... Shop Responsibly at the Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store! As consumers, we possess so much power and potential to create more socially and economically just trade arrangements. As the holidays approach and the inevitable shopping frenzy begins pulling us towards strip malls and chain stores, we invite you to think outside the gift-box and exercise your power to purchase ethically and consciously. Our team at the Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store works hard to connect customers with small producers and cooperatives according to Fair Trade criteria. As a result, we generate income for thousands of artisans and their families in over 40 countries. Simultaneously, we offer our customers not only beautiful hand crafted holiday gifts, but the satisfaction of knowing that they are directly helping both those families and the very worthy cause of Fair Trade. To visit our Fair Trade Online Store, please click here. Global Exchange also has 3 brick and mortar Fair Trade stores located in California and Oregon. To find the closest store to you please click here. Lastly, from now until the end of the year you can enter the following coupon code at checkout to receive 10% off of your next Fair Trade Online Store purchase: realitytours1008 **** Still looking for ways to get involved?
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Reality Tours: A Firsthand Account By Renee Cooper Reality Tours Delegate to Nicaragua, 2008
The experiences I had on my tour to Nicaragua were nothing short of unforgettable. During my Reality Tour I met some of the nicest most accepting people in all of my travels and I even had the honor to share a couple of days and nights in the home of one particularly loving and caring family. They opened up their lives to me in a manner that made me feel like I had come home to a place I never before thought I'd find myself so comfortable in. Experiencing a culture and a country through home-stays, working on a coffee farm, talking to locals, being surrounded by the most vibrant and lush landscapes I've ever seen and feeling like a member of the community are all things this reality tour offered to me.
I will never forget the irreplaceable time I spent in Nicaragua nor the people there I had been blessed to have met. Every morning as I start my day off with a cup of coffee, I am reminded of the faces and the stories of the people who work hard to plant, grow, and harvest those beans that that we enjoy every morning. This trip will reveal to you how closely we are all connected, the coffee drinker with the coffee farmer, and give you hope for a more just connection between our two countries!
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Donate Today to the Reality Tours Scholarship Fund Have you participated in a past Reality Tour and returned home feeling inspired and energized to be an active agent for change in our world? Did a Reality Tour deepen your understanding of the importance of creating people to people ties across geographical, cultural, and economic borders? If so, we would like to invite you to share this experience by donating to the Reality Tours Scholarship Fund. Since many youth and people from low-income communities find it difficult to afford our delegations, Reality Tours works to maintain a Scholarship Fund as a way of extending this transformative opportunity to a larger population. The purpose of the Scholarship Program is not only a means to help support these communities, but also to ensure greater diversity and mutual learning within each Reality Tour group. The Fund is sustained by benefits events and donations from previous Reality Tour Participants, like you. Every penny counts. Your contributions go to ensure that young and economically disadvantaged individuals continue experiencing these empowering delegations. All donations are also tax-deductible as we are a certified 501(c)(3) Non Profit! To donate please send checks made out to "Global Exchange: Reality Tours Scholarship Fund", to:
Global Exchange
If you have any general questions about the contents contained here, or would like to submit an article or photo for future newsletters, please contact Zeya. Thank you very much for your care and support! |   |
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