promoting fair trade philosophy and products
to smile for the camera.
Fair Trade Gwangju is BACK!
about the recent development and rapid growth
in popularity of fair trade in Aotearoa/ New Zealand.
Yul also explained about how the principles of fair trade make a fair trade company like Trade Aid different from a common company like Starbucks. Three of the more unusual key guiding ideas are transparency, accountability, and respect for the farmers and the workers. For example, we can see that "transparency" and "accountability" are important to Trade Aid because the not-for-profit company reports publicly each year, including putting their budget online. The Beautiful Store in Korea also makes its financial reports public online too.
it puts pictures of the actual farmers
on their packets of coffee.
We also talked briefly about how we all have the power to talk with our families, our friends, our school-mates and teachers, and even other people in our churches and clubs or hagwons about things like fair trade. Talking leads to thinking, and thinking leads to action, or living a different way. While we may not be able to set up our own shop or import fair trade products from overseas, we can contribute to the ongoing development and growth of fair trade merely by talking about it with everyone.
Finally, we also considered how Gwangju city is the birth-place of the modern move for democracy in South Korea, and how during the May 18 movement in 1980 for many days there was no rule of law, and yet people treated each other fairly, and despite the absense of police no crime was committed throughout the city. In this modern smaller global village thirty-two years later, we can take that idea, that spirit of democracy, and that feeling of fairness out into the world beyond Gwangju by voting with our money; KRW1,000 is a vote for a company and its way of treating its workers.
helping explain fair trade to everyone at the festival.