In this post, we thank Lea Murray, Reality Tours traveler extraordinaire! To read about others we’re thankful for, click here.

Lea Murray, Reality Tours Traveler Extraordinaire

Lea (left) with fellow Reality Tours travelers

Reality Tours travelers aren’t tourists.

They’re travelers on a mission.

What makes Reality Tours travelers so awesome is what they do when they get home.  They don’t just unpack their suitcases, they unpack a life changing experience.  Speaking to family and friends.  Hosting film screenings.  And in a few instances, starting their own volunteer efforts to address the issues raised on their journeys.

Lea Murray traveled with Global Exchange on a Reality Tour to Venezuela in June of 2012, and her life hasn’t been the same since.

“Now that I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, what will I do?  I will re-think my life.  I have a new vision.  I want to see how other people live and experience life.  I want to travel to even more places where black Africans were dispersed during the slave trade.  I will travel to Haiti and Cuba and examine the plight of my black brothers and sisters in these small island countries.  I will re-think my business…I will open my eyes — see the vision — and do something to make a difference.  I will participate,” said Murray.

All of us at Global Exchange are grateful for Lea’s efforts to inspire and educate others about what she’s seen, and for the work done by the hundreds of other Reality Tours participants each year.

Every traveler makes a difference.

So to Lea and all Reality Tours travelers, we say…

Thank You.

Know that wherever your journey takes you, we are honored to have joined you.

P.S. Have you watched our new Thank You video yet?

In this post, we thank the persistently giving Matt Ramsden. To read about others we’re thankful for, click here.

Matt Ramsden, Steadfast Despite Prize Drawing Losses

Matt Ramsden is indispensable.

For the past few years, Matt has supported Global Exchange in myriad ways.  He continues to enter our prize drawings, despite never having won the coveted grand prize (or any of the other prizes, for that matter).  He has treated his loved ones to Global Exchange Gift of Membership packages come holiday season.  He has responded to emails, letters, and phone calls.  I’m sure if we sent out a message in Morse code, he’d tap a response right back to us.

Donations from Matt and thousands like him turn ideas into action. People from across the globe contribute, confident that every dollar, every hard earned cent, is put to work right away towards the critical issues of our time.

This support means that when the Caravan for Peace trekked across the United States calling for an end to the tragic insanity of the drug war, weary travelers had a place to sleep and something to eat.

This support helped people set up their own Elect Democracy barbecues to bring their neighbors together to talk about booting the Big Banks from politics.  And as we go toe to toe with lobbying giants, we’ll have people power on our side.

When we respond to calls from communities across the country to help craft legislation that affirms the rights of community members to decide what happens in their own backyards, your donations fund our stand against corporate greed.

To Matt, and to the teachers, students, retirees, metalworkers, dancers, parents, children, dreamers, nurses, taxi drivers, farmers, and everyone else whose dedication and commitment truly make this work possible –

Thank you.

P.S. Have you watched our new Thank You video yet?

In this post, we thank Jenny White, volunteer superstar! To read about others we’re thankful for, click here.

Jenny White, Volunteer Superstar

Jenny White is a volunteer.

Around here, that makes her a superstar.

In the fall of 2011, Jenny ran into her long-time friend Kirsten Moller from Global Exchange at an Occupy Wall Street march in San Francisco.  Jenny was transitioning out of a career at UCSF Medical Center and was looking for something to fill her time.  Why not volunteer at Global Exchange, Kirsten asked.

“It just rang a bell for me.  I jumped at the chance,” said Jenny.

We’re sure glad these two old friends ran into each other.  For the past year, Jenny has been volunteering at the Global Exchange office, tackling project after project with aplomb — all while providing a friendly smile for everyone in the building.

Her first major challenge: digging into Hershey’s supply chain to examine the company’s record on child labor.  From there, she moved on to coordinating the We Want More from Our S’mores campaign, applying pressure on Hershey’s to go Fair Trade (and eating a few goodies along the way).  Now, Jenny has teamed up with our Elect Democracy campaign to investigate the link between lobbyists, corporations, and government agencies.

Volunteers form an essential part of the Global Exchange community, helping to deliver the impacts we care most about to Fair Trade producers, community members impacted by fracking, and victims of the drug war.  Nothing we do would be possible without folks like Jenny.

Volunteers research corporate criminals.  They paint signs.  Take pictures.  Edit videos.  Write blog posts.

In short, volunteers are indispensable.  To Jenny, and the hundreds of volunteers who have pitched in over the years:

Thank You.

P.S. Have you watched our new Thank You video yet?

In this post, we thank Lyla Seo for shopping Fair Trade. To read about others we’re thankful for, click here.

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Thank You Lyla Seo, Shopper on a Mission

Lyla Seo is helping to fundamentally realign our global economic order.  She’s funding healthcare, education, and women’s empowerment.  She’s supporting worker’s rights and helping end child slavery.

And she’s doing all this through one simple act; purchasing Fair Trade products.

Lyla shops at our San Francisco Global Exchange Fair Trade store, and we couldn’t be more grateful for folks like her.  For over two decades, Global Exchange has been a leader in the Fair Trade movement.  And over the years, we’ve come to realize a simple truth:

Fair Trade’s success or failure is completely dependent on people like Lyla.

Purchases drive the Fair Trade system, providing the development premiums that make a meaningful difference in the lives of producers the world over.  All of the projects that matter most – building schools and clinics to developing the infrastructure for additional trade – are only possible when the market for Fair Trade thrives.

All trade provides income, but Fair Trade goes beyond the exchange, expanding rights at the workplace and amplifying the voices of farmers and artisans.  And for commodities like cocoa, Fair Trade is a powerful mechanism for ending child slavery.

We weren’t kidding about the whole fundamental realignment thing.

Lyla knows just how much power she really has.  She explains that she shops at the Global Exchange retail store “because it is important to shop Fair Trade,”

We agree.  And we are thankful for all of the people who help Fair Trade grow.

To Lyla and all of the other Fair Trade supporters out there:

Thank you.

 P.S. Have you watched our new Thank You video yet?

In this post, we thank Global Exchange Monthly Sustainer (GEMS) Jennifer Carino. To read about others we’re thankful for, click here.

Jennifer Carino, Committed to the Cause

When Jennifer Carino stopped working at Global Exchange in 1998, she knew that she wanted to continue her support for an organization that had grown near and dear to her heart.  She was less confident, however, that she would remember to mail in her donation once a year.

So she became a Global Exchange Monthly Sustainer (GEMS).  Every month, her donation is made automatically by credit card.  Computers, as it turns out, aren’t all that forgetful.

We don’t mind licking a few less envelopes either. Monthly givers like Jennifer help reduce overhead by eliminating many mailing and outreach costs, allowing more of her donation to go towards our programmatic work.

More of each dollar goes towards crafting local ordinances to safeguard against corporate harm.  More of each dollar goes toward stopping lobbyists from hijacking our democracy.  More of each dollar goes toward ending the drug war and human rights abuses in Mexico.  More of each dollar goes towards communities, farmers, towards realigning our global social and economic order to meet the needs of people and ecosystems, not corporate shareholders.

Not to mention, fewer mailings means less paper, so giving monthly is more sustainable.  Over 250 people give each month, just like Jennifer.

So Jennifer Carino and all of our GEMS, for allowing us to focus on the work that matters most (and for saving us a few stamps)…

Thank you.

P.S.  Have you watched our new Thank You video yet?

On Thursday, October 4th, Global Exchange will open the doors to our San Francisco office for our annual Open House, and all are welcome.

It’s a great chance for you to mingle with Global Exchange staff, friends, and the community.  And if you feel like dancing, you can dance the night away.  (If you don’t feel like dancing, that’s fine too)

Each year, we look forward to the Open House as a fun way to get to know each other a little better.  We have a few snacks, a few laughs, and take some time to share information about all our great programs.

And one more thing: PRIZES!!

Wonderful, fabulous prizes.  Prize drawing tickets are on sale now, just $10 each or 6 for $50.

Global Exchange’s 2011 Open House

Get your tickets for a chance to win:

• $1,000 towards a Reality Tour*
• Wine Country Getaway package including 1 night stay at the Mill Valley Inn and VIP wine tasting tour at Cline Cellars
• 2 tickets to a VIP tasting at Jacuzzi Family Vineyards
• Indoor Skydiving Experience for 2 at I-Fly SF Bay Area
• $200 gift basket from Global Exchange Fair Trade store
• Olive oil from Canaan Fair Trade
• Sterling Silver bracelet from Nina Design
• And more…

We hope you can join us on Thursday, October 4th for a night of free food  and fun!

Global Exchange Offices
2017 Mission Street, Second Floor
San Francisco, CA 94110

For more information, or questions, please contact Chelsea Weaver.

*For Reality Tours, Restrictions Apply

Global Exchange intern Lily showcasing the GEMS membership card during GEMS drive earlier this summer

It’s good to have friends you can rely on.

Over the summer, Global Exchange announced an effort to bring on board new Global Exchange Monthly Sustainers (aka GEMS), donors who have made a pledge to support Global Exchange with a donation every month.

We’ve been blown away by the response from the Global Exchange community. In the past few weeks, over fifty people have signed up. This outpouring of support from our new monthly donors means that we have much stronger ground to stand on when it comes time to plan our campaigns for the months to come — a solid financial backing as we stand up for the Rights of Nature, call for an end to the Drug War, and boot the big banks from our elections.

And because so many people have signed up, we decided to reach out to our members one last time before summer officially ends to provide another opportunity to step forward and become a GEMS. We want no person left behind!

Three great reasons to become a GEMS today:

1) It saves time.  Signing up online is quick and easy.  Five minutes, tops.  Once you sign up, you’ll never have to worry about making a donation to Global Exchange again.

2) It saves paper.  When you sign up for a GEMS, we remove you from our mailing list.  Fewer letters and no envelopes mean fewer chopped down trees.

3) Ice cream.  As in, a six month supply of Ben & Jerry’s for anyone who signs up today at $10 or more a month.  You choose the flavor.  We do the rest.

Everybody wins!

To get started and join the Global Exchange Monthly Sustainer program, just click here.

If you have any questions, contact Kirsten Moller, Kirsten@globalexchange.org.

A source of boundless clean energy. And smiles.

Did you know that by 2015, solar energy will be the lower cost option for 66% of US homes?  Did you also know that you don’t have to live on the Equator to receive adequate sunshine to power your home?

Continue reading: A Summer Solarbration

Bradley Manning

With over 2,900 votes, the people have chosen PFC Bradley Manning as the 2012 People’s Choice Award winner.  Global Exchange is proud to honor Bradley Manning, and we hope you’ll take a moment to read more about this year’s winner.

It takes great courage to stand for what you know is right.  Bradley Manning, a 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst, joined the army at age 19.  Before deploying to Iraq, when a friend asked that he “stay safe,” Bradley replied, “I’m more concerned about making sure that everyone: soldiers, marines, contractors, even the local nationals, get home to their families.”

Bradley is accused of leaking a video showing the killing of civilians, including two Reuters journalists, by a US Apache helicopter crew in Iraq.  He is also charged with sharing the documents known as the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and embarrassing U.S. diplomatic cables, with the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.  The video and documents have exposed the true number and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq, human rights abuses by U.S. funded contractors and foreign militaries, and the influence that corporate interests have on U.S. foreign policy.  Journalists have credited the release of these documents with helping to motivate the democratic revolution in Tunisia as well as the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

In chat logs attributed to Bradley by the FBI, he explains what motivated him to act:

“I can’t separate myself from others…I feel connected to everybody…like they were distant family…I…care?  I prefer a painful truth over any blissful fantasy.  I think I’ve been traumatized too much by reality, to care about consequences of shattering the fantasy…God knows what happens now.  Hopefully worldwide discussions, debates, and reforms…I want people to see the truth…regardless of who they are…because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

Although Bradley has not yet been tried, he was held in solitary confinement for the first 10 months of his incarceration.  During this time he was denied meaningful exercise, social interaction, sunlight, and was occasionally kept completely naked.  In one week in April 2011, over a half million people signed a petition to end his illegal treatment, as those conditions serve as “a chilling deterrent to other potential whistleblowers committed to public integrity.”  His supporters include famous whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, over 300 top legal scholars, veterans, and civilians around the world.

If the military continues refusing to acknowledge Bradley as a whistleblower, he may become the first person in U.S. history to be convicted of “Aiding the enemy through indirect means,” a crime punishable by life in prison or the death penalty, for telling the public the truth.

To learn more about how to support Bradley Manning, please visit the website of the Bradley Manning Support Committee: bradleymanning.org

Join us on Thursday, May 10, 2012 as we honor  Human Rights Award Honorees Bradley Manning and Annie Leonard at the Tenth Annual Human Rights Awards in San Francisco.  (Note that Bradley’s award will be accepted by a representative)

For more information about the Human Rights Awards, and to purchase tickets, please visit humanrightsaward.org.

Blog Author Debra Weistar

This guest blog was written by Debra Weistar, co-director of Finding the Good Traveling Semester Program.

“This was the most amazing day ever.  I learned more today than in all the years of my education.”

–Wyatt Maniarrez, Oct. 6, 2011, after attending a court hearing between the Western Shoshone and the Bureau of Land Management arguing for the protection of water on Mt. Denaho in Nevada, where the largest mining corporation in the world is mining for gold on public lands.

Wyatt is 16 years old.

I should mention that the education Wyatt received on that day included a crash course on Rights of Nature and rights-based governance.  As a prospective student in Finding the Good Traveling Semester Program, Wyatt joined us for a day.  When he is enrolled in the full semester on January 2012, he will take a block course on community rights, Rights of Nature, corporate personhood, the regulatory system, the history of the Constitution of the United States, and social movements.  Did I mention this is for high school?

Students with Chief Almir, Surui people of Brazilian Rainforest

Without the crash course in Rights of Nature and rights-based governance, Wyatt would likely have come away from the day in despair, instead of with his eyes wide and his head full of new thoughts. The hearing was, in his words, “stacked heavily in favor of the BLM and Barrick Gold Corporation” and we witnessed the lawyer for the tribes argue within the regulatory “script” to try to save the waters of Mt. Denabo. The argument was not about rights – the right of Mt Denabo to “exist, flourish and evolve”, nor of the Western Shoshone’s ancient rights to the land and water. Instead, the argument was, as it most often is, about an interpretation of a possible flaw in the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) carrying the slim chance that the waters of Mt. Denabo – a sacred site to the Western Shoshone – might be partially protected. Opposition to the mine itself years ago was not successful and the open pit at the base of Mt. Denabo is well over a mile across.

Not an encouraging picture, to be sure, in an all-too-familiar scenario in the fight to protect and preserve the fragile ecosystems on which we all depend. The difference, to Wyatt and the other students who are learning about corporate personhood and community rights, is that they are also learning about rights-based governance, and what that might mean to them as citizens and young leaders.  They can participate in action that is based on standing up and saying “no” to corporate destruction, instead of begging for lesser harms. So even though the picture is bleak, frustrating, and frightening, they are no longer bound by a myth and controlled by a fiction in their own minds. The truth can be hard, but knowing the truth is essential to an authentic education.  Authentic education is essential for social change.

Students interviewing Thomas Linzey

Youth need to learn from community organizers doing rights-based work. At Finding the Good (FtG) they learn from Shannon Biggs, Rights Based Campaigner for Global Exchange, and Ben Price from CELDF, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. They interview people like Thomas Linzey, co-founder of CELDF, to learn about communities that are claiming their right to self-governance, drafting and passing ordinances that keep destructive corporate activity out. FtG is currently working with Shannon Biggs and others to create a Youth Summit for Rights of Nature and Rights Based Organizing.

In front of the courthouse on the day of the hearing, Wyatt along with Skye, media intern for Finding the Good, shot footage of the water ceremony and speeches with tribal members. They interviewed Shoshone grandmothers who spoke about the sacredness of water, and how water has a right to flow unimpeded and pure. “That’s what we believe”, said Mary McCloud, “that’s the Indigenous way.” They heard the lawyers for Barrick Gold and the lawyers for the government make statements like, “There can be degradation, just no “undue” degradation”, when speaking of the water. When the issue of Shoshone religious and cultural values was brought up, they argued that those cannot be “quantified” and therefore do not fit into the established analytical model. As such, they cannot be considered. Wyatt and Skye can consider them, though. They can also consider that humans and Nature have inherent rights and that those rights must be protected.

Wyatt and Skye will take the footage they shot and the interviews they recorded and produce news pieces for our local radio station and online news source, as well as the Finding the Good blog. While they may not yet be prepared to draft a new constitution recognizing the rights of Nature, they are learning to educate others on issues and solutions that can lead to a just and sustainable world.

Finding the Good Traveling Semester Program is open to all high school juniors and seniors, and gap year students. Please visit the Finding the Good student blog at www.blog.findingthegood.org

To donate to Global Exchange’s ongoing Community Rights Program, please click here.