Named after Juno, the ancient Roman goddess and protector of women, the month of June has long held the title of the most popular month for weddings. But according to the Wedding Planning website, June is no longer the most popular month for weddings. In recent years has been surpassed by the months of July and August as the month popular months to say I DO. With so many I DOs taking place at this time of the year, maybe the Fair Trade Wedding Guide in it’s own little way serves two purposes?

First, we would like to thank everyone who participated in our $250 Shopping Spree ! There were many entries from Fair Trade enthusiasts far and wide. But as all contests go, there could only be one winner….and that winner is Jennifer Caperton!

Everyone loves chocolates. We consume more than 3 million tons a year. Many holidays throughout the year provide a spike in sales of the delicious treat, including Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Halloween and Christmas. Most, however, don’t consider the fact that 200,000 children in West Africa work under forced labor conditions on cocoa farms to help produce those chocolates we enjoy, according to the United Nation’s Children’s Fund.

Last year the Fair Trade Federation’s (FTF) annual conference was merged for the first time with the Fair Trade Futures conference. 2011 now sees the yearly FTF meeting back in traditional garb. Months before discussion of budgets, unions, or protests surfaced to cause overheated controversy on the nightly news, the FTF conference committee settled on Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This year’s conference theme is Building UP Fair Trade and is scheduled for May 6-8th!

Through Matt Johnson’s office window a storm brews each day beginning around 11 am. Until a few days again, workers on both sides of Matt’s window pane expected to have the same rights. The irony is that now those outside the SERRV offices are in danger of losing the rights that SERRV (and other Fair Traders) demand as a tool in the fight against world poverty.

The first time I asked this question publicly was in the Spring of 2007. It was during an open discussion at the Fair Trade Federation’s conference in Washington, DC at the American University. The topic, how can we grow the Fair Trade (FT) movement?

While President Obama was not specifically referring to Fair Trade last night in his State of the Union Address, his measurement of progress is at the heart of what Fair Trade businesses seek to achieve both at home and abroad. The economy is growing again but that recovery can not only be measured by the profits corporations make. Progress must also be measured by the quality of life new jobs bring to people.
If you share these values, and are currently looking for a job, here are few sites you might want to check out.

Grab your girlfriends, or even your grandma, because one lucky person is going on a Fair Trade Shopping Spree, on us! Yeah that’s right, we’re giving one luck person a chance to go on a $250 Shopping Spree to their favorite Fair Trade Store and we’re picking up the tab. It’s simple really. We want you to experience Fair Trade and there’s no better way to do that than to go shopping.

This is your chance for guilt-shopping at its best!

Thanksgiving is now seen by many as the starting point for the three biggest shopping days of the season: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Without a marketing team, a label or an outrageous deal behind it, Thanksgiving has been relegated to a small steel enclosure that signifies the starting gate of the holiday shopping season. If that is the case, it is an utterly depressing thought. I sought to find a glimmer of hope that all was not lost to mass consumerism.

Immersed in El Salvador working with small farmers Monika had a conversation with Jonathan Rosenthal, co-founder of Equal Exchange, which would impact her life for years to come, it was her first exposure to this concept of “fair trade”. At the time it sounded kind of crazy to her…. Little did she imagine that several years later she’d be working in Chiapas, Mexico facilitating this crazy new concept “fair trade”!