The best entry in the Raise the Bar Hershey Campaign brand jamming contest will now win a $1,000 cash prize!

New extended deadline: April 10, 2011

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Have a little creative fun with the Raise the Bar Hershey Campaign!

Announcing our Hershey Brand Jamming contest.

We’re teaming up with our Fair Trade allies, Green America, the International Labor Rights Forum and you to create ads asking Hershey to end pervasive child and forced labor and trafficking in the cocoa fields and replace it with Fair Trade.

It’s time to use your creativity to tell Hershey’s to raise the bar on their corporate social responsibility.

Hershey’s has long avoided addressing the issue of child and forced labor that persist in its cocoa supply chain. Let’s keep the pressure on them.

You’ve seen brand-jamming like this before when Global Exchange Sweatfree campaign spoofed The Gap’s ads or when several organizations, including Global Exchange, came together to call out Chevron’s greenwashing campaign in these clever and powerful spoof ads.

The Hershey brand-jamming contest will be judging on three categories:

• Best mock slogan/tagline
• Best print advertisement
• Best mock commercial in video format (up to 2 minutes long)

E-mail entries to fairtrade@globalexchange.org. Deadline for submissions will be March 24, 2011.

The winner of each category will get a “Chocolate Lovers” Gift Basket from Global Exchange’s Fair Trade store. All those who submit entries will receive a 10% off coupon from Global Exchange’s Fair Trade stores.

Once submissions are in, we will invite you to vote on the winners.

Visit our Hershey Brand Jamming page for more information about the contest and for resources to get your started.

Happy Jamming!

A report released by the International Labor Rights Forum, reveals that for decades the Uzbek government has used the forced labor of its schoolchildren starting in the early primary grades, college and university students, and civil servants, to harvest that cotton by hand. After the beginning of the school year, the government orders the closure of schools in order for children to report to the fields for the cotton harvest.

Working conditions are dangerous often leading to injuries and sometimes death. Children who refuse to participate in the cotton harvest are either beaten or face mental intimidation. Parents are unable to speak out against their children’s forced labor for fear of losing jobs or getting social services taken away.

This is where your voice is needed. The cotton harvest season has recently begun and just like every other year, children are being taken out of school, put in the fields and are missing out on much needed education. The cotton picked ends up on the clothes that you and I buy. Our allies at the International Labor Rights Forum have worked hard and have been able to get most major companies to speak out publicly about Uzbek cotton and/or develop company policies related to Uzbek cotton. Recently, Abercrombie & Fitch has announced that it has a policy of not sourcing Uzbek cotton, however Gymboree, the children’s clothing store, has consistently been unresponsive to inquiries from shareholders and advocates.

Global Exchange’s SweatFree campaign encourages you to take action to eradicate the use of child labor in Uzbek cotton fields. Demand that Gymboree end their silence.

For more information about child labor in Uzbekistan, visit the International Labor Rights Forum’s Cotton Campaign. Also be sure to watch Environmental Justice Foundation’s film: White Gold – The True Cost of Cotton.

White Gold – the true cost of cotton from Environmental Justice Foundation on Vimeo.

In addition, if you are in Washington, DC Sunday, October 24th, check out the Fair Trade Pavilion at the Green Festival. Naik Banavanthu from Global Exchange, along with Amanda White of Green America and Tim Newman of the International Labor Rights Forum will host a panel discussion titled, Fair Trade Cotton: Can it Make a Difference?

This panel will discuss issues in the process of producing cotton in India and its effects on small farmers, children and the environment. Speakers will also discuss the impact of Fair Trade cotton and apparel.

The panel will be Sunday, October 24th at 1:30PM.

photo credit: Noam Armonn

Congratulations to the Seattle SweatFree Community for their tireless work to get Seattle to join nine states, 40 cities, and 118 school districts with sweatfree policies. According to SweatFree Seattle, the new policy

“requires sweat-free labor standards and a Code of Conduct for all bidders on City uniform contracts and makes a commitment to protections against slave labor, forced labor, forced overtime, excessive hours, child labor, below-poverty wages, discrimination, harassment, and other types of unfair labor practices.”

Wondering if there is a sweatfree campaign in your community? Find out now.

As someone born in San Diego as well as a graduate of the UC system, I would like to congratulate the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) who just recently adopted what is said to the be the “strongest Fair Trade policy in the United States.” For the past five years, student advocates have been campaigning to get the University to make a commitment to promote Fair Trade products throughout the campus. According to the new policy, all future food vendor contracts at UCSD are “mandated to require 100% Fair Trade Coffee, Fair Trade Tea and Fair Trade Sugar at all locations on campus.”

According to Student Sustainability Collective (SSC) Director of Food Policy, Jared Muscat,

“Fair Trade is an important part in the category of food sustainability and to have this policy makes the numbers our university strive for not only look realistic, but possible to push further.”

It looks like the SSC also has their sights set on pushing their Fair Trade University campaign to not only be UC-wide, but also to be a national one.

Interested in turning your school into a Fair Trade one? Let the United Students for Fair Trade be your guide.

Gooo Fair Traaaade!

A final congratulations goes out to my fellow Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition buddies in Berkeley as they successfully became the 19th Fair Trade Town just yesterday.

The Fair Trade Berkeley steering committee had been working with the City Manager’s office to craft a “Best-in-Class” Fair Trade Town Resolution and City Ordinance. According to the resolution, the city would

“commit to purchasing fair trade products when they’re readily available, city-standard compliant, and competitively priced.”

The city would also be part of ongoing Fair Trade education efforts and take an active role in weighing in on Fair Trade issues.

In the first Berkeley City Council meeting where the Fair Trade Berkeley steering committee presented the resolution, Global Exchange’s own Carolyn Gravely at the GX Fair Trade Berkeley Store prepared testimony to the City Council on Berkeley’s strong interest in being a Fair Trade Town. In typical Bay Area fashion, a celebration will be taking place in August to mark this tremendous victory.

Feeling inspired? Turn your town into the next Fair Trade Town.

Congratulations to the all the Fair Traders and SweatFree Communities out there for pushing the movements even further!