Kent Davidson is a member of the Media Borough Council, the government body that passed the resolution in 2006 making Media, PA, the First Fair Trade Town in the US. Citizens of Media, including our own beloved Hal, have traveled to international Fair Trade events and cooperatives in the past, but Kent’s recent travels mark the first time an elected official from Media has traveled to the source of Fair Trade. Following is the narrative that accompanied Kent’s televised slide-show report to his fellow Borough Council members. Here’s Kent…………
I recently returned from the Dominican Republic on a week-long trip sponsored by Fair Trade USA to learn more about Fair Trade cooperatives in the Dominican Republic…and to visit and meet the people who benefit from Fair Trade policies. But first, I will start with a quick explanation of what Fair Trade is, as I still get requests from friends and neighbors, who still aren’t clear on what it means.
“Fair Trade” means “workers rights.” “Fair Trade” means that farmers, producers, and workers get paid a living wage in other countries for producing goods we purchase.
If you believe that workers have the right to form unions, to be paid fairly, and to negotiate their contracts, then you believe in Fair Trade. If you believe that workers should earn a living wage…then you believe in Fair Trade.
To be clear, Fair Trade is not about sending jobs overseas, or about paying more for products. Most Fair Trade goods are things which we must import into the United States. Things like coffee, cocoa, and bananas, to name a few. As well, Fair Trade sets up standards so that income for a Fair Trade cooperative is reinvested into the communities that are members. In this case, it means that your money spent buying Fair Trade coffee goes to scholarships for farmers’ children in the Dominican Republic to go to college. Or it means that when you buy Fair Trade cocoa, your money goes to help farmers form a credit union to save money together and then finance their projects.
What I learned on this trip is that Fair Trade has made a huge difference in the lives of workers, who live in the Dominican Republic. I also witnessed how each cooperative organizes itself, shares in revenues, and governs itself. We also spent a fair amount of time learning about how each product is processed and tested for quality.
The trip consisted of myself and 11 other individuals from around the country involved in Fair Trade Towns USA, and four members from Fair Trade USA: a total of 16 people. We worked with a group called Global Exchange, which had local representatives in the Dominican Republic, who acted as liaisons when we arrived, and handled logistics while we were there.
While I was there, we visited four different cooperatives:
- Conacado – A cocoa-growing cooperative
- Alta Gracia – A “sweatshop-free” Fair Trade textile plant
- Fedecares – A Fair Trade coffee-growers cooperative
- Coopprobata – A 100% Organic Fair Trade banana cooperative
At each, we sat and met with the cooperative representatives and discussed their structure, and they shared stories with us about how Fair Trade has benefited their lives. As well, I was able to spend two days with a family, who are members of the cocoa cooperative, and learned more about how Fair Trade has benefited them.
To share some selected stories: I met a daughter of a coffee farmer, the youngest of eight children, who was the first in her family to go to college. She will be graduating this year, and plans on coming to work at Fedecares, the coffee cooperative we visited. When she was telling us her story, she had tears in her eyes with gratitude that she had the opportunity to go to college with the money from Fair Trade practices.
We met workers at the textile manufacturing facility, who now earn more than five times what they earned previously, and are able to send their children to school, and even can afford to purchase their homes or purchase small plots of land to live on.
Finally, we met organizers within each of the unions, which have grown by 200 to 400% in the past 10 years, due to Fair Trade policies.
The past Media Borough Council deserves praise for their courage and conviction in becoming America’s First Fair Trade Town. There are now 23 Fair Trade towns and cities in the US, and towns like Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco have followed in our footsteps. There are over 1,000 Fair Trade towns in the world spanning 5 continents and 22 countries. We now have another first: Penncrest High School is the First Fair Trade Public High School in the United States.
Finally, I want to encourage all businesses in Media, who purchase textiles, agricultural products, or goods which can only be produced in other countries, to support Fair Trade products. As consumers, by simply asking companies if their products are Fair Trade will send a message that you support fair wages, fair payment of workers, and the people who produce our goods.
I will finish with a quote from one of the cooperative farmers:
“While our whole community has benefited from Fair Trade, I want people to know the true story. Many of our farms are beautiful, but many are still so poor. I ask you to continue your efforts, so together we can help lift them out of poverty.”
Thank you and please, visit: First Fair Trade Town USA and LIKE them on Facebook.
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality . . . Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his 1Elizabethkillough7 Christmas Sermon on Peace