Inside the kits? Delicious fair trade chocolate pieces, printed cards with an introduction to fair trade and the abuses of the cocoa industry, and an invitation to learn more on the Reverse Trick-or-Treating website.

In West Africa the abuses of the cocoa industry are rampant, including substandard wages, oftentimes forced labor. The Dark Side of Chocolate is a heart breaking documentary that we’ve been working to promote which highlights that those consigned to slavery are often children. We also released a report earlier this year titled Still Time to Raise the Bar: The REAL Corporate Social Responsibility Report for the Hershey Company 2011, which indicates that confectioner giant Hershey’s has a long way to go to ensure that it’s cocoa slavery free. As a complement to our advocacy, we’re using Reverse Trick-or-Treating to build a connection, child to child, and to enlist children as ambassadors to encourage adults to make a change in their chocolate buying habits.

To order a copy of The Dark Side of Chocolate, visit our website or email fairtrade (at) globalexchange (dot) org.

Our partner organizations that helped with outreach:
• Fair Trade Resource Network
• Fair Trade Towns USA
• Green America
• International Labor Rights Forum
• Jeannette Rankin Peace Center
• Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State
• Terra
• Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
• Our team of volunteers that came in to help stuff the kits, including the Global Exchange staff!

Reverse Trick-Or-Treating was featured in USA Today and the Boston Herald. And Holistic Moms featured RTT on their blog.

Got pictures of your participation? Send them in to kylie (at) globalexchange (dot) org.

Photo contest winner: Rasha Sharhan

Speaking of photos, the Raise the Bar, Hershey campaign spent the Halloween season collecting photos from all of you for the Hershey Halloween Photo Contest to send Hershey the clear message that we would not accept Halloween candy made with child labor. A big congratulations goes out to Rasha Sharhan from Cabrini University who submitted the winning photograph!

A special shout out also goes out to Amber Bruce and her super hero kids for submitting their photo.

In other Fair Trade chocolate news, our Raise the Bar, Hershey campaign partner, Green America traveled to Hershey, Pennsylvania to present the more than 100,000 petition signatures to Hershey management demanding a fair deal for workers.

Reverse Trick-or-Treating is back for it’s fifth year to give you the opportunity to treat-n-teach your neighbors!

This Halloween, you can help end the exploitation of children in the cocoa industry and raise awareness of Fair Trade! Trick-or-Treaters will be handing Fair Trade chocolate back to adults, with informational cards attached, to explain the problems of the cocoa industry and how Fair Trade presents a solution. By providing children with a way to be active, hundreds of thousands of households in the US are getting the message that child labor and forced labor will not be tolerated by our kids.

You can take part by visiting www.reversetrickortreating.org and ordering your kit today. This year, Global Exchange is offering a limited quantity of kits to individuals so be sure to get your order in quickly! 

Each kit contains 15 mini chocolates, informational cards and an instruction leaflet. The kits are free, you pay just $7.50 for shipping, but we are asking participants to round up if they are able, to help cover costs.

If you don’t manage to get one of the kits, you can still take part! Download free flyers here and pass them out on Halloween. You can purchase Fair Trade chocolate at any of our Global Exchange Stores, or check out one of the Fair Trade companies listed below.

If you are part of a group, school or organization and want to purchase a group kit, please visit Equal Exchanges order page.

Reverse Trick-or-Treating is an initiative launched by the human rights organization Global Exchange in cooperation with Fair Trade companies Equal Exchange, Sweet Earth Chocolates and Coco-Zen, and is a collaborative effort of countless children, youth, and adults supported by institutions including nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations, Fair Trade companies, and schools.

Get your kit today!

Reverse Trick-or-Treating

At this fall’s Green Festival in San Francisco, Marie addressed an attentive crowd as she exposed the dark side of chocolate and explained what Fair Trade is doing to fix it, “one bite of chocolate at a time.” She relayed her experience of participating in the Sweet Smarts program and advocated for ways that everyone could get involved in the Fair Trade movement. From tabling, getting Fair trade in supermarkets, to Reverse Trick-or-Treating, Marie has educated her community about the appalling child trafficking and slavery on cocoa farms and how Fair Trade prohibits these practices.

Watch a clip of her presentation at the Green Festival and hear her urge the crowd about the necessity of Fair Trade to end child labor in the cocoa industry and for everyone – especially the youth – to get involved, because it’s not about kids helping kids, it’s about kids fighting for kids.

Sweet Smarts Captain Marie Hogan Presents at Green Festival 2010 from Global Exchange on Vimeo.

Find out how you can start your own Sweet Smarts chapter in your community. Get started with your first event by hosting a screening of the latest documentary, The Dark Side of Chocolate.

This year, we are happy to share that this year, tens of thousands of kids and adults will hand out Reverse Trick-or-Treating kits to 100,000 households in 49 states and the District of Columbia in the US and all over Canada this year! Yes! If you didn’t order an RTT kit this year, you can still get involved by passing out Reverse Trick-or-Treating and Raise the Hershey bar fliers.

You can also help spread awareness about child labor in the cocoa industry by hosting a screening of newly released documentary, The Dark Side of Chocolate.

Other ways to get involved with Halloween this weekend:

• Make an ad on Reese’s website raising awareness about forced and child labor in Hershey’s cocoa, and send it to all your friends.  If you make the ad by Monday, November 1 and CC it to fairtrade@greenamerica.org, Green America will send the best ads to Hershey.
• According to his Facebook page, Stephen Colbert’s “March to Keep Fear Alive” is sponsored by Reese’s (owned by Hershey)!  For children in West Africa, Hershey’s/Reese’s are indeed keeping fear alive…the childrens’ fear of being trafficked into forced labor in the cocoa fields that grow cocoa for chocolate bars sold in the US.  There is a lot of buzz nationwide about this march, on Halloween eve…join the Raise the Bar Campaign in helping use that buzz to hold Hershey accountable.  If you have a Facebook account, leave a message on the wall of Stephen Colbert, the Colbert Report, and the March to Keep Fear Alive, as well as the Daily Show, raising awareness of the connection between Reese’s and child labor.  If you use Twitter, here are some suggested tweets:

• @StephenAtHome the only thing scarier the #march4fear is the use of #ChildLabor in the production of #Reeses
• @StephenAtHome #Reeses does have something to hide and it is scarier than peanuts: #ChildLabor
• @ColbertReport #Reeses may contain dairy, peanuts and #ChildLabor.

• You can also sign a petition to Stephen Colbert to put pressure on Hershey.

Most importantly, have a safe and happy Halloween this weekend everyone!

This is your chance to do some good this Halloween by helping to spread the word about Fair Trade. And let’s face it, you can’t beat free when it comes to Fair Trade chocolate:)

GOT KIDS?  KNOW KIDS?  Order your Reverse Trick-or-Treating Kit Today

What is Reverse Trick-or-Treating? Children of all ages (+ high school/college students/adults) give chocolate back to adults at each house they visit on Halloween during their regular trick-or-treating rounds through their neighborhoods, or at an equivalent community event.

What’s in the Kit? Fair Trade chocolate attached to an informational card about the problems in the cocoa industry, (such as child slavery, environmental degradation, and poverty) and how Fair Trade provides a solution.

With your help, we will reach a quarter million households in the US and Canada with this important informational message!

Remember, the deadline to order is Wednesday, October 13th for both organizations and individuals, so spread the word

Kits for individuals are FREE and include 15-20 Fair Trade chocolate minis and informational cards. Kits for organizations are $24 per box of 150 minis and cards (maximum 2 boxes per organization).

Request your kits TODAY at www.reversetrickortreating.org.

Oh, and if you’re looking to purchase trick-or-treating chocolate to distribute from your doorstep, visit Global Exchange’s Online Fair Trade Store.

Have a boo-ti-ful Halloween, from all of us here at Global Exchange!

Cross-posted from the FairTradeUSA blog:

October is Fair Trade Month and Global Exchange wants you to get involved. It’s a month when we can celebrate the power that the Fair Trade movement has had around the world, linking you the consumer to the producer and their community. Throughout the years, Global Exchange has highlighted the importance of building the Fair Trade movement by making people-to-people ties in communities locally and globally.

This Halloween, get out your Fair Trade banana costume and participate in Reverse-Trick-or-Treating. The goal is for trick-or-treaters to switch it up and go door to door passing out informational cards attached with Fair Trade chocolate to raise awareness in their communities about poverty alleviation and economic justice for cocoa farmers around the world. Hear (and see) what last year’s participants had to say about this fun and creative action.

Can’t wait until the end of the month to help build the Fair Trade movement? Throughout October, you can participate in Global Exchange’s scavenger hunt which will bring you from the supermarket to the classroom and even to your Congressperson to promote an economic system that is better for workers and the planet. One clue will bring you to Global Exchange’s Fair Trade stores, where you will learn more about the producer groups we work with. One group of artisans we recently connected with in Rajasthan, India has been using an ancient technique of mud-block-printing to preserve a practice that is slowly disappearing while employing both men and women and strengthening the community.

Besides the incentive of spreading the Fair Trade word, participating in our scavenger hunt will make you eligible to win up to $200 in Fair Trade prizes. Build the movement and win.

With October well underway, it is time to reflect on the reasons behind making our purchases matter. With over 2.6 billion people in the world living in poverty, Fair Trade makes a difference in the lives of farmers, women and the environment. But only if people know about it.  Only 30% of Americans know what Fair Trade is—and we need your help to grow the movement this month. Join Global Exchange, Fair Trade USA and hundreds of other organizations and advocates out there to create a system of fairness, equality and sustainability.

Get more information of Global Exchange’s Fair Trade campaign: www.globalexchange.org/cocoa.
Pick coffee in Nicaragua, chocolate in the Dominican Republic, tea in Nepal or olives in Palestine on a Reality Tours Fair Trade delegation.
Visit our Fair Trade stores.
And of course, read our Fair Trade blog for the latest news and views of the movement.

This morning as I sat down at my desk, I flipped the page of my Fair Trade calendar and was greeted with a Happy Fair Trade Month! Every year, October is designated as Fair Trade Month where we come together to spread the world about how Fair Trade is benefiting small-scale producers and artisans and why Fair Trade matters to us all.

FairTradeUSA (formerly TransFairUSA) has set up the Fair Trade Month website where you can find out about Fair Trade events taking place all month, hear from farmers and workers around the world, and find fun and creative ways to get involved and build the Fair Trade movement in your own town and all over.

FairTradeUSA CEO, Paul Rice talking to the crowd.

A few nights ago, yours truly spent the evening with the FairTradeUSA crew in San Francisco at their Fair Trade Month kick-off party. The event was filled with fellow Fair Traders, delicious treats ranging from delicious truffles from CocoZen, hummus made with La Yapa Quinoa, AlterEco chocolate and then some. Yours truly also was the lucky winner of the raffle going home with a bottle of vodka made from Fair Trade quinoa. Win! It was a truly Fair Trade event even with a Fair Trade DJ with Corinne from Global Exchange’s San Francisco Store on the ones and twos. Great event.

Fair Trade win!

Happy Fair Trade Month everyone from Global Exchange! Get involved and take action all month long. Start with signing up for Reverse Trick-or-Treating! Then register your Fair Trade Month event. I will use this weekend to enjoy my Fair Trade prizes from the other night. Happy weekend all.