Many of our Reality Tours Costa Rica alumni will remember the brilliant educator and activist, Marta Sanchez.  Marta has organized and facilitated our Global Exchange open and customized groups since 2005. Today Marta shares her story with us.  Learn how she became part of our Global Exchange family!

I got involved with Global Exchange Reality Tours after my enrollment in the Palestine-Israel delegation  about 10 years ago.  That intense experience unveiled to me an excruciatingly painful reality I was short to imagine. Although far from attempting a comparison, this experience turned on many lights in my understanding concerning the reality of my own country and the “convenient blindness” we people use to suffer from.

By that time, Costa Rica was in the middle of a historical process: the eventual signing up of the  Central American Free Trade Agreement.  Like most of the population, I was unaware of  the serious implications of CAFTA against our Social State of Law  which we “Ticos” always took for granted!

Given this historical context, Andrea  my daughter, who happened to be the Central America RT coordinator at GX by that time, organized an RT program for Costa Rica.  I promised her to find someone who could trip lead the first delegation, but my best candidate failed the last minute, and I had to take up. Here began a series of living experiences that taught me a lot about the myths and realities of my own country. As an illustration, the first of these experiences came from a  meeting with Costa Rican former president Rodrigo Carazo. Carazo was a passionate anti-CAFTA fighter and, in his home, the GX delegates and myself received  first-hand information about the uncertain future of  Central American economies if Costa Rica ended up signing the treaty — Costa Rica was the last country in Central America to submit to CAFTA. This meeting was illuminating in unusual ways. For example, the delegates could not believe a politician of such an exceptional moral stature, like Carazo had displayed this special deference towards us by inviting us to his home!

GX delegations now visit Costa Rica from coast to coast. The living experiences our delegates can tell are many and varied, and the resonance of these encounters are still there. One of the tours, for instance, made it possible for a community to count on attractive alternatives for kids and  their mothers  to rescue both even from prostitution. Back home, one of our delegates pulled  the necessary strings to  provide funds, so that ASOMUFAQ, in the Central Pacific, could finish a theater project  and a  restaurant. Today that community has a theater group for kids that now participate in annual national contexts (and Global Exchange delegations can count on a delicious restaurant that serve typical dishes prepared by these women…)

I´m sure the living experiences GX Reality Tours have brought  to me and the many people involved have affected us one way or another. The reality of a tourism-dependent country such as Costa Rica can only be revealed by conscious tourism, and this only justifies  the meaning of this program.  Now I only organize the itineraries on a pro bonus basis but, from the comments by the delegates, I can say that the Mission and Vision of Global Exchange Reality Tours  is amply accomplished in Costa Rica.

Interested in meeting Marta and traveling beyond the normal ecotourist path in Costa Rica this year?  Join us and explore Ecotourism and Sustainability on the Northern Pacific Coast in November.

Thank you to Reality Tours staff alumni Andrea Valverde for sharing our mission and for introducing us to your mom. We have been blessed to have her host our members.

Special Thanks to our Reality Tours intern Kathleen Reynolds for conducting this interview.

Photo credit: David Deriso

It’s true, you can travel to Cuba this summer with Global Exchange and the Center for Cuban Studies! From August 7 – August 14, 2012 anyone can  join this people-to-people licensed, educational trip to explore the ‘Greening of Cuba’. Sign up here!

Throughout the 20th Century, Cuban agricultural production mainly centered on large industrial farms producing crops (mostly sugar) for export while food has been imported.  Prior to the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the largest market for Cuban sugar was the United States. After the Revolution the Soviet Union became the primary purchaser. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc in the early 1990’s, imports plummeted as did the guaranteed market for Cuban sugar. Cuba began to transform its agricultural infrastructure out of necessity.

Photo credit: Laura Lee

One success of the Cuban Revolution was giving every Cuban the chance to have an education. For the first time children of farmers could aspire to a university education, but this has created unexpected challenges as well. With the movement from industrial, mostly mechanized, farms to organic small farms and cooperatives, there is a shortage of people who want to live and work in the countryside. This delegation will meet with Cuban farmers, experts, and policy makers who will provide an in depth view of the movement towards organic farming in Cuba, its successes, and the challenges it faces.

Program Highlights may include:

• Visit the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation
• Visit with a representative from the Ministry of Agriculture
• Visit to the UNESCO designated biosphere reserve of Las Terrazas
• Visit to the National Botanical Garden
• Visit to an organic farming cooperative in Alamar
• Visit a tobacco plantation in Viñales
• Meeting with National Urban Agriculture Group

Cost:
$2,900.00

Price Includes:

• RT flight:  Miami/Havana/Miami
• Cuban visa and required Cuban health insurance
• Double room accommodations
• Two meals per day
• Conference fee
• Site visits
• Translation
• Transportation (with group)

Global Exchange is thrilled to offer this unique, co-sponsored Reality Tour with the Center for Cuban Studies and hope that you will join us! Please call Carol Steele for more information at 415.255.7296. Sign up here!

Read more about traveling in Cuba and learn more about traveling on a Reality Tour.

Paul Prew in the Sarayaku, Ecuador 2007

Reality Tours started offering delegations to Ecuador in the spring of 2002. Now we are celebrating ten years of  rich, educational programming that examines pressing social and ecological issues affecting Ecuadorians from the Andes to the Amazon. While there are many special aspects of our program in this culturally and biodiverse nation, it is the indigenous struggles to protect their cultures, ecosystems and Pachamama in the face of major petroleum and mining corporate interests that lay at the foundation behind each eco-tour. As I prepare for my fourth trip to the Ecuadorean Amazon, I feel honored to engage and learn once again from the wisdom, experiences and successes of  communities like the Sarayaku. To know that our journeys keep their promise to inform and inspire make all our hard work in San Francisco and in Quito worthwhile! Just read the insights of past participant Paul Prew:

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Indigeneity and the Environment in Ecuador- A Past Participant Shares His Story by Paul Prew

I traveled to Ecuador in July of 2007 with Global Exchange.  While it has been a few years, the experience is with me to this very day.  While preparing a new course, I was reviewing a number of films on indigenous and environmental issues.  In the film Crude, I saw a number of the same people, organizations, and locations featured in the movie that I visited on the Global Exchange tour.  I was impressed with the ability of Global Exchange to plug us into a variety of social movements and organizations.  As an educator at a state university, I use the experience every term in a number of my courses.  In addition to my Indigeneity and Environment course, I use the Global Exchange tour for a number of my courses.  The Global Exchange tour was helpful in two specific ways.  First, the tour outlined the struggles faced by the people of Ecuador and others in similar nations.  Second, the tour also provided a number of concrete models of citizens tackling very difficult problems in their community.

Heather with Child in Salinas, Ecuador, 2007

The issue I have discussed often in my classes is the effects of oil exploration in Ecuador.  While on the Global Exchange tour, we visited Coca and participated in a “toxic tour” of the region.  As soon as we exited the plane, the smell of fuel oil was immediately present.  Our tour took us through towns with pipelines transecting them.  We visited a waste oil pit where oil was collected in a large pond with no lining to prevent it from seeping into the groundwater and surrounding ecosystem.  We also visited a waste oil pond that was cleaned up, but oil remained in the soil and in the shallow pond that replaced the waste oil pit.  We also stumbled upon workers fixing an underground pipeline that had been leaking.  As a result of the leak, we were able to film a home that was destroyed by an explosion resulting from built up gas.
Not all of the experiences regarding oil exploration focused on the problems people faced.  We also visited the indigenous community of Sarayaku where we saw people actively preventing environmental degradation.  In Sarayaku, the community members have successfully prevented oil companies from initiating oil exploration in their territory.  The Sarayaku have been able to attain this level of success through a number initiatives that have reorganized their society and reached out to the global community for support.  We learned about the changes in their governance structures, education, and environmental policies.  Their local model provides examples for other communities to follow.

Building Fish Ponds in the Sarayaku, Ecuador 2006 Image by Malia Everette

I think the lessons learned in the community of Sarayaku resonate with me the most.  In the United States, our privileges are dependent on resources we take from others around the world.  We tend to lack an awareness of our ecological boundaries.  The Sarayaku are acutely aware of their ecological relationships and attempt to proactively mediate their relationship with the surrounding environment.  While they have made many changes, one issue stands out.  Because of contamination and over-fishing outside of their territory, the Sarayaku have had to deal with declining fish populations.  To help supplement their fish catch, the Sarayaku, in conjunction with resource ecologists, have developed fish farms.  These fish farms are sustainable using plantain and termites for fish feed.  Because these fish farms were not a traditional means of meeting their needs, I asked the Sarayaku elder, Don Sabino Gualinga, how these fish farms fit with their notion of “balance.”  He replied that they must deal with the concentration of people, and there is hope that they will return to an equilibrium in the future. Now, they have other areas (nature preserves) where there is balance.  In this way, the Sarayaku are actively thinking about their relationship with nature and assessing how they can maintain their culture and also maintain their livelihood in the rainforest.  These ideas allow me to help students contemplate their own society and its relationship with nature.

Children and Blue Skies in Salinas, Ecuador 2007

The theme of struggle and success resonated throughout the tour.  We visited cooperatives in the mountain town of Salinas and also the community of Yungilla.  We heard from farmers fighting a mining company near the town of Intag.  We met with organizations such as Accion Ecologica where we learned about Plan Columbia and its effects on the local population.  After discussing these issues in one of my classes, a student talked with me after class.  She was stationed in the military base in Ecuador near area where Plan Columbia was implemented.  She began by telling me that the local population was not very friendly to her or the other US troops.  Knowing that this was the result of Plan Columbia, I asked her about how friendly people were when she visited other areas of Ecuador.  She admitted that her experiences outside of the military base area were very pleasant, and people were very friendly.  Because of the Global Exchange tour, I was able to help this student see that the people of Ecuador were not antagonistic toward “gringos” but were justifiably upset about the policies of the US government that affected their lives.  We were able to discuss this distinction and make it a learning experience.

The Global Exchange tour in Ecuador was a life changing experience.  I hope to join another tour in the future.  I am still amazed at the depth of the experience and how profoundly it has impacted my life and those who shared in the tour. 

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Take Action! For those of you that would  like to learn more and get involved:

• Learn more about Global Exchange’s Rights of Nature campaign.
• Travel with Global Exchange: Visit our Find a tour page to find the trip that interests you most.

Fair Harvest in the Dominican Republic

8 years ago here at Global Exchange Reality Tours we began incorporating the fair trade story into our annual departures to address disturbing truths about the global economy.  Millions of farmers around the world are facing poverty and starvation because global crop prices have continued to plummet to all-time lows, a worldwide crisis exacerbating problems including malnutrition, family farm closures, and in some cases increased drug cultivation.

In today’s world economy, where profits rule and small-scale producers are left out of the bargaining process, farmers, craft producers, and other workers are often left without resources or hope for their future. Fair Trade helps exploited producers escape from this cycle of poverty.

The tourism industry has seen a growth in both “voluntourism” and philanthropy-based travel, and in 2003 Reality Tours launched its first Fair Harvest tour. The goals; to share the story of fair trade with travelers, to offer a service learning opportunity, to support local community-based tourism initiatives as a promoter of socially responsible travel, to meet and exchange with fair trade certified cooperative farmers, and to inspire our alumni to return committed to supporting the fair trade movement in their own communities and to support our Global Exchange Fair Trade campaigns and Fair Trade craft stores.

Global Exchange Reality Tours highlight the importance of fair trade on commodity crops such as cocoa, coffee, olives, and tea as well as textiles and crafts, and contextualizes the debate between “fair trade” and “free trade” crops and products in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador, Palestine, India, Nepal, Rwanda and many other countries. Reality Tours provide the opportunity for participants to learn firsthand how:

• fair trade producers receive a fair price – a living wage;
• forced labor and exploitative child labor (and modern day slavery) are prohibited;
• buyers and producers have direct long-term trade relationships;
• producers have access to financial and technical assistance;
• sustainable production techniques are encouraged and mandated;
• working conditions are healthy and safe;
• equal employment opportunities are provided for all;
• all aspects of trade and production are open to public accountability.

The Fair Trade system benefits over 800,000+ farmers organized into cooperatives and unions in over 48 countries. While the complexities of each country are unique, what fair trade means for communities is often very similar. Fair Trade profits help fund basic education, health care, and general infrastructure in communities, amplifying the dignity of communities who get to stay on their land. Reality Tours fair trade themed trips provide the opportunity for farmers to share their stories with participants. Reality Tours participants who have witnessed firsthand the benefits of fair trade return from their journey inspired by the experience.

Nicaragua Woman Harvesting Coffee Beans

A Cup of Fair Coffee?
Let’s take a commodity or two as an example. The United States consumes one-fifth of all the world’s coffee, the largest consumer in the world. But few North Americans realize that agriculture workers in the coffee industry often toil in what can be described as “sweatshops in the fields.”

Many small coffee farmers receive prices for their coffee that are less than the costs of production, forcing them into a cycle of poverty and debt. Fair Trade is a viable solution to this crisis in Nicaragua, assuring consumers that the coffee they drink was purchased under fair conditions. To become Fair Trade certified, an importer must meet stringent international criteria; paying a minimum price per pound, providing much needed credit to farmers, and providing technical assistance such as help transitioning to organic farming.

Fair Trade for coffee farmers in Matalgapa means community development, health, education, and environmental stewardship. Our Fair Harvest programs to Nicaragua provide the historical context for this social and economic vulnerability and absolutely impact people’s purchasing decisions. We’ve been honored to work with the Fair Trade Cooperative CECOCAFEN for years and know that when our delegates return many choose fair trade in their cups. What if that one-fifth of global coffee drinkers all put their purchases where their values are? That would have global repercussions!

Sweet, Sweet Chocolate

Fair Cocoa Harvest in the Dominican Republic

Next, let’s look at chocolate. The six largest cocoa producing countries are Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Cameroon. Cocoa has significant effects on the economy and the population in these countries. In Ghana, cocoa accounts for 40% of total export revenues, and two million farmers are employed in cocoa production. The Ivory Coast is the world’s largest cocoa producer, providing 43% of the world’s cocoa. In 2000, a report by the US State Department concluded that in recent years approximately 15,000 children aged 9 to 12 have been sold into forced labor on cotton, coffee and cocoa plantations in the north of the country. A June 15, 2001 document released by the Geneva, Switzerland-based International Labor Organization (ILO) reported that trafficking of children is widespread in West Africa. (For ILO definitions of these labor violations, see ILO Convention 182 on Child Labor ILO Convention 29 on Forced Labor.)

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) followed up these reports with an extensive study of cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, directly involving over 4,500 producers. The results were released in August 2002. An estimated 284,000 children were working on cocoa farms in hazardous tasks such as using machetes and applying pesticides and insecticides without the necessary protective equipment. Many of these children worked on family farms, the children of cocoa farmers who are so trapped in poverty many make the hard choice to keep their children out of school to work. The IITA also reported that about 12,500 children working on cocoa farms had no relatives in the area, a warning sign of trafficking.

Child laborers face arduous work, as cacao pods must be cut from high branches with long-handled machetes, split open, and their beans scooped out. Children who are involved in the worst labor abuses come from countries including Mali, Burkina Faso, and Togo — nations that are even more destitute than the impoverished Ivory Coast.

Vicious Circle of Poverty

Rwanda Women's Coffee Cooperative Sorting Beans

Parents in these countries sell their children to traffickers believing that they will find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send their earnings home. But once separated from their families, the young boys are made to work for little or nothing. The children work long and hard — they head into the fields at 6:00 in the morning and often do not finish until 6:30 at night. These children typically lack the opportunity for education, leaving them with no way out of this cycle of poverty. The IITA noted that 66% of child cocoa workers in the Ivory Coast did not attend school. About 64% of children on cocoa farms are under age 14, meaning that the loss of an education comes at an early age for the majority of children on cocoa farms. (Watch The Dark Side of Chocolate, a powerful documentary on this issue).

Producer income remains low because major chocolate and cocoa processing companies have refused to take any steps to ensure stable and sufficient prices for cocoa producers. World cocoa prices fluctuate widely and have been well below production costs in the last decade. Though cocoa prices have shown moderate increases in the past few years, cocoa producers remain steeped in debt accumulated when prices were below production costs.

Producers typically also get only half the world price, as they must use exploitative middlemen to sell their crop. The effects of insufficient cocoa income have been exacerbated by deregulation of agriculture in West Africa, which abolished commodity boards across the region, leaving small farmers at the mercy of the market. This economic crisis forced farmers to cut their labor costs. The outcome was a downward spiral for labor in the region, and a surge in reports of labor abuses ranging from farmers pulling children out of school to work on family farms to outright child trafficking and slavery. These small farmers and their children remained trapped in a cycle of poverty, without hope for sufficient income or access to basic education or health care.

 We Can Change It!
For years, US chocolate manufacturers have claimed they are not responsible for the conditions on cocoa plantations since they don’t own them. But the $13 billion chocolate industry is heavily consolidated, with just two firms — Hershey’s and M&M/Mars — controlling two-thirds of the US chocolate candy market. Surely, these global corporations have the power and the ability to reform problems in the supply chain. What they lack is the will.

At Global Exchange, we know there is a solution – supporting Fair Trade cocoa and chocolate. Fair Trade chocolate and cocoa products are marked with the “Fair Trade Certified” label. Fair Trade cocoa comes from Belize, Bolivia, Cameroon, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Peru. Thus Reality Tours has a Cocoa Fair Harvest program in the Dominican Republic. Every year, we encourage chocolate lovers from around the world to join with our local partners from Grupo CONACADO to explore benefits of Fair Trade cocoa and sustainable harvest, renewable technology in the Dominican Republic.

Palestine Fair Olive Harvest, Group with Farmers 2009

Fair Trade Tourism is a growing segment of our socially responsible travel program here at Global Exchange. Our third Fair Harvest destination was announced in  2007 to Palestine where participants worked side by side Palestinians harvesting olives. The Fair Trade story continues to evolve and we look forward to expanding our Reality Tours programs in the years to come.  There is an opportunity for those of us in the tourism industry to make a positive change in the world. Tourism can be a force for good. We can ensure tourism dollars stay to benefit the local economies of our hosts. We can highlight the stories, the struggles and aspirations of the communities we visit. Together with Reality Tours trip participants, we can be a force for fairness.

This piece was originally written by Malia Everette  for Tourism Review, Tourism Magazine Review October 2010 issue.