Jane in Iraq, Embedded with the Marines in Anbar

Our guest blogger today is Jane Stillwater, a woman whom the folks here at Reality Tours have known for over a decade. We might tease her as being a “serial tripper”, and tell her not to worry about sending in  her registration as she is in the database, but in all seriousness we honor Jane for her adventurous, compassionate spirit and for being a true citizen diplomat!

It’s wonderful to read on Jane’s blog about how each journey has impacted her. Her blog begins with: “Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved.” Jane is preparing to take her 6th Reality Tour this summer.

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In the last ten years, I’ve participated in five different Global Exchange Reality Tours  and each one of them has been both awesome and jaw-dropping. GX has taken me to Cuba, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and Belfast! And I’ve gotten to see places and meet people there that nobody, not even the locals, hardly ever get to see or know.

Jane Stillwater, Reality Tours Alumni

And I’ve also been able to come back home and write about what I have seen and to help tell other Americans that Iran, Cuba, Afghanistan. etc. are not filled with evil terrorists and boogeymen but rather with just ordinary people like you and me, trying to make a life for their families just like we do.

So when Global Exchange recently announced that it was sponsoring a new trip to Uganda on July 2, I was SO there! Signed up immediately. The trip will focus on efforts in Uganda to stop human trafficking and eliminate the use of child soldiers — what’s not to like about that?!

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Jane, you are a welcomed addition to any Reality Tours trip!

TAKE ACTION!

• You can read more about Jane’s hopes for our upcoming Uganda Reality Tours trip on her blog.
• Learn more about our powerful advocacy delegations that examine human trafficking, child soldiers and human rights.
• Interested in going on a Reality Tours trip but low on funds? Here are 3 free resources to help you fundraise:

1. Financial Scholarship Application  
2. Fundraising Tips
   
3. Fundraising Pack

Wanjiku Mwangi, Reality Tours Uganda program advisor

Today we share with you some thoughts and impressions from Wanjiku Mwangi.  Wanjiku helped Reality Tours organize and facilitate some of our Uganda delegations.  Global Exchange continues to examine peace and conflict resolution in East Africa with a special emphasis on advocacy efforts with those working against human trafficking.

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I have had the honor of hosting three Global Exchange Reality Tours in Uganda; for students from Suffolk University, the University of California, and one for the organization ‘Not for Sale’.

These groups of incredible Americans are interested in understanding how the people of Northern Uganda  have fought against the menace of sexual and human trafficking brought about over the course of two decades of war and violence by Kony rebels and the Ugandan Army, that has decimated a once peaceful, healthy way of life for this community.

The American Reality Tours participants spent time visiting with organizations and communities both in Kampala and Gulu that are working to rebuild Northern Uganda back to its strong, self sustaining status, as it was before the horrors began.

From these Reality Tours trips, connections have formed and genuine, positive relationships have been forged, which have brought both emotional and financial support to northern Uganda communities.  One initiative borne out of this relationship is Tharce Gulu, a Local NGO that helps Northern Uganda communities heal from the traumatic effects of 22 years of war, sexual enslavement, and extreme poverty, lead by Professor Judy Dushku of Suffolk University in Boston.

Prof. Judy Dushku with Ugandan Children, Suffolk University Delegation to Uganda 2009.

Tharce Gulu started operating in Gulu town, northern Uganda in March 2010. Since then, with limited resources, Tharce Gulu has supported the capacity development of 4 women groups, making  up a total of 134 individuals in producing computer bags, candles and beads, which the groups sell locally and internationally, to help pay for their daily family needs and expand the small local businesses.

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Thank you Wanjiku for your contributions to Global Exchange. You help us “meet the people, learn the facts and make a difference!”

Travel to Uganda: If you are interested in learning more about upcoming Reality Tours trips to Uganda focusing on human trafficking, please visit our website.

Creating the Tassa Tags at the Regina Center

Do any of you intrepid Reality Tours travelers need a new luggage tag? If so we strongly recommend you purchase a Tassa Tag. Here’s why:

TassaTag is a special luggage tag that helps you claim your luggage more easily and is a visible voice against child sex tourism for the travel industry.

Tassa Tag is a project of ECPAT-USA and stands for Travelers Take Action Against Sex Slavery and Trafficking. TassaTags are big, bright  4”x6” hand-woven cotton, fair-trade luggage tags.

The TassaTag project raises funds (in the US) for the following purposes:

• To train people in the Travel Industry to take an active role against sex tourism.
• To Inform the public that sex with children is against the law everywhere, and if caught the person will be prosecuted and extradited to their home country, if necessary.
• To mobilize congress against child sex tourism

Five colorful TassaTags

While the mission is compelling enough today it is the motivation behind the tags and the personal passion of  the founder of the project, Brenda Hepler that we wanted to share with you.

When asked what motivated the her to get involved Brenda states:

“ The horror of a child being a sex slave was so horrendous to me, I could not turn away.  So I created the TassaTag, was led to the Regina Center where the women perfected the prototype, and then gave them to ECPAT-USA where I continue to volunteer as the director of the TassaTag Project.”

TassaTags provide work with dignity for women at the Regina Center in Nongkai, Thailand and funds the pre-schooling for their children.

At Global Exchange we know the power of Fair Trade and advocacy. When you support Tassa Tag you support ECPAT-USA’s work to raise awareness of the sexual exploitation of children in the travel industry and the community they employ in Nongkai.

TAKE ACTION!

• Become a visible voice against the sexual trafficking of children while finding your bags easily by picking up a TassaTag of your own;
• Learn more about efforts to combat human trafficking on an advocacy Reality Tour!

Advocacy delegates and community walk and talk, Cambodia

Reality Tours has promoted meaningful travel since 1989. We know socially responsible tourism benefits the host economy and that the more local people benefit from tourism, the more likely it is that women receive these benefits. However, there are many negative impacts associated with mass tourism. Sex tourism is an egregious and growing trend that we have witnessed further exploiting and eroding the rights of women and children worldwide.

Because of this Reality Tours became a signatory to ECPAT’s Code of Conduct in 2010.  Tour operators can make a positive difference and do a lot to educate our communities about this growing exploitative industry.

Anti-Human Trafficking Delegation meeting with Gulu Youth Development Association

ECPAT International is a global network of organizations working together for the elimination of child trafficking, child prostitution and child pornography. The network is comprised of 81 groups in 74 countries around the world.

Since signing in 2010, Reality Tours has worked to train ourselves and train our partners and hosts. We’ve updated our materials to include this Code of Conduct, and proactively informed our travelers. This was an important, practical next step for us- especially after partnering with Not For Sale for the past 4 years on our advocacy delegations.

Bringing our public education efforts about global human trafficking back “home”, we’d like to share a new documentary released by ECPAT-USA and  WITNESS that exposes the lack of adequate child sex trafficking laws in the US.  “What I’ve Been Through Is Not Who I Am,” tells the story of Katrina, a formerly sexually exploited teen who was arrested many times. It was only after she accepted an offer of help from a safe haven that she was able to escape.

Please take a moment to learn how legislative reform measures and new approaches can shift our collective response from a punitive one to a restorative one. When you hear Katrina’s personal story you’ll understand that we are jailing children in the US, that there is no such “thing” as a child prostitute, and that it is time to change our system.

Meet the People

If you’re interested in exploring this issue, consider the transformational power of Reality Tours delegations on Human Trafficking. You’ll meet modern day abolitionists first hand and hear stories of struggle and triumph. Join us.

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Follow along on a Reality Tours trip to Uganda

Arriving into Kampala I recall the delightful heat of the air. I had to wait in line to purchase my visa and was behind a group of missionaries from the US who were eager and complaining about the slow speed of our processing. I felt awkward about one of the gentleman’s statements about bringing God to “these people” and decided not to engage in a discussion about salvation and religion at that moment. Instead, I pondered about what I was about to experience,  and the stereotypes I brought with me.

After arriving at the airport I was met by one of the hotel staff and was whisked away into the night for a long drive to the hotel. There I met up with some fellow trip participants, a group of free spirited students from Suffolk University. We sat and talked about our first day in Uganda. These young women knew the issues and were really excited and nervous to meet with youth from Sister Rosemary’s Girl’s Tailoring project the next day.

Over the course of the next week and a half we met with many individuals and organizations that are committed to rebuilding their communities and lives. We met with folks who work to rehabilitate and provide psychological support services to children who are former “child soldiers” and “bush brides”.

Here are highlights from some a of the many amazing stories that came out of this inspiring trip to Uganda:

Meeting with “Child Mothers”: Picture a large living room shared by about two dozen North Americans and two dozen Ugandans. We had invited two women from some of the groups  working with the child soldiers in Gulu and Lara to travel to Kampala to meet with our group, share their stories and exchange. What a fabulous encounter this was.

First we met with Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe who is the Director of the St. Monica’s Girls Tailoring School located next to a refugee camp in Gulu, Uganda. Her school works with ‘child mothers’ -a term Ugandans use to describe women ages 12 to 18 who were abducted child soldiers.

During our visit, the young women shared personal stories of abduction and rape by their captors, their struggles to survive and their hopes for their future and for those with children, their families’ future.

The next day we were joined by Lina Zedriga (who now runs  the Trauma Healing And Reflection Centre-Gulu or THRACE-GULU) and heard similar but unique experiences shared by the youth under her care. Lina is a lawyer and magistrate who has tirelessly advocated for women, peace and security. We all listened silently to story after story told by the courageous young people, each of us connecting to the stories, some of us with tears, some of us with clenched arms, and others feverishly taking notes.

This was quite a moment for many of us, including the children who were able to listen and share with each other their stories of struggle. For many this was their first visit to the capital. As one of Lina’s girls spoke, she had to stop and gather herself to resume her story. Her strength was admirable.

As the exchange ended, we dispersed after hugs and thank you’s, ready to break for a spell before dinner. Some of the youth went off to play soccer. Over dinner our group processed and discussed, but also shared moments of laughter, a choir of voices, all of us mingling, talking, and sharing. I closed my eyes and listened to giggles and heard people talking about music and the best places to dance. Plans were made for groups to go out and enjoy some local night life.

Friendships had been made. I wrote in my journal that night a rhetorical question:

“How can one so young, so innocent, see so much brutality, endure so much pain, inflict pain on others still find the internal reserve to live, laugh, heal and dance?”

I left Uganda imprinted with the faces of the children I met, remembering the image of one of them carrying a 25 kilo sack of sugar on her head into the bush, starting off on her hours-long trek. This travel experience left me with an amplified respect for the tenacity of the human spirit and with a broader understanding about our human capacity to endure, feeling compelled to hear truth, unconditionally love and take a stand.

Join Us on an Upcoming Reality Tours Trip to Uganda! Learn more  by joining us in Uganda this year. Visit our website for all you need to know about upcoming trips to Uganda.

Watch this great series! Check out  Bridge the Gap’s Uganda Series, a wonderful web-based TV program that highlights some wonderful transformational stories, including linking Uganda and community development to the importance of Fair Trade (through bees!)  Here’s a spot on Bridge the Gap about Global Exchange:

2011: Global Exchange: join the network for people’s globalization! from Global Exchange on Vimeo.

Prof. Judy Dushku with Ugandan Children, Suffolk University Delegation to Uganda

This is Part 1 in a 2 part series about Global Exchange Reality Tours trips to Uganda. 

History of Global Exchange Reality Tours Trips to Uganda: For decades many of us here at Global Exchange talked about adding more trips to Africa to our list of destinations. Given our  commitment to social justice advocacy, citizen diplomacy and socially responsible tourism surely there are dozens of African countries where folks would want to meet the people, learn the facts, make a difference.

It wasn’t until 2008 when we started seriously considering creating our educational human rights journeys to Uganda, just two years after we began working in partnership with the abolitionist organization Not For Sale.

As a human rights organization, we partner with like-minded organizations to educate groups of individuals who travel abroad to learn about the root causes of human trafficking and to inspire and mobilize participants into the international abolitionist movement.

After organizing delegations to many other countries to explore the issues of smuggling and trafficking of human beings for slave labor and sex slavery, we recognized the importance of examining what has been happening for decades in Uganda with the mass abduction of children into armed conflict.

Learning About Uganda:

Visiting the IDP Camps in Gulu, Uganda 2009.

I started reading about “child soldiers” and about the political struggles in Uganda and what led to the birth of the LRA (the Lord’s Resistance Army). Established in 1987 the LRA engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in what is now one of Africa’s infamous conflicts.

I visited Uganda and got the chance to visit one of the IDP camps (for internally displaced peoples). We drove by one of the old haunting spots of the LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony, and I could not help but feel the immediacy of this place and the astonishment and fear that many must hold in their hearts for their leader.

Reality Tours Trips to Uganda Began:

Eventually we decided to develop a reality tour trip that would examine not only the beauty and biodiversity of Uganda, but also investigate the legacy of conflict and the last remaining active rebel group, the LRA.

The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, and forcing children to participate in hostilities and incursions. LRA fighters have achieved a sad notoriety by turning on the Acholis people they claimed to represent, hacking off lips, ears and noses, killing thousands and abducting more than 20,000 civilians, mostly children.

The conflict continues to have devastating effects on the Ugandan people, Museveni’s political legitimacy, and countries in the region that have experienced increased strain due to the flow of irredentist populations. The need for people to learn from the stories of communities in Uganda that have been affected themselves compelled us to offer a series of delegations in the summer of 2009 called Human Trafficking in Africa and Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Trafficked Girls and Boys coerced into being Child Soldiers in Uganda.

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That’s it for Part 1 of this 2 part series about our Reality Tours trip to Uganda. Tomorrow in Part 2 on our Reality Tours blog, I’ll share with you some of my memories and pictures of the Reality Tours trip to Uganda that I participated in. 

Join Us on an Upcoming Reality Tours Trip to Uganda! Learn more  by joining us in Uganda this year. Please also check out  Bridge the Gap’s Uganda Series. A wonderful web based tv program that highlights some wonderful transformational stories, including linking Uganda and community development to the importance of Fair Trade.  In fact, check out the Global Exchange spot live today!

Boreth Sun's visit to Global Exchange in San Francisco, California

This is the second in a two-part interview by Global Exchange Reality Tours Intern Sue Sullivan with our Cambodia and Thailand program officer, Boreth Sun. Follow along to discover what it means to be an in-country representative of Reality Tours and our partnering organization Not For Sale.
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This past October, Reality Tours’ in-country program officer for Cambodia and Thailand, Boreth Sun traveled to the Bay Area to speak at the 2011 Global Forum on Human Trafficking.

Reality Tours has been honored to work and partner with Boreth since 2007 and we took advantage of his visit to show him the office and take him for a brief tour of San Francisco…after all, a few of us here at Reality Tours have traveled with him throughout his beautiful country.  We also had the opportunity to interview him about his experiences working with us and facilitating Reality Tours.

Boreth’s perspective is informative, compelling and inspiring. Learn more about what it means to be an in-country partner and why it is important for the international community to visit and learn first-hand about life in South East Asia in the second in this two part blog.

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Sue: What has your experience been as an In-Country Program Officer in Cambodia?

Boreth: It has been a learning experience for me because I have had a chance to meet with a lot of people from the US and elsewhere through Reality Tours. I take it for granted that everyone should know about these issues; about community issues, human rights issues, human trafficking, poverty, the community struggle for people to improve their livelihood, to manage their own resources, about the big fight against corporations coming to take over their land, I thought people should familiar with all these issues, but Reality Tours, you realize that through people coming in that sometimes, its their first time they are seeing things and looking at things from a different perspective. For me it has also been good to help show people, link people and promote cultural change, a change of mindset to look at things from different perspective. It really is rewarding for me that some of these participants, from the delegation Reality Tours, the Reality Tours have changed their life, it has changed their career, and they’ve become more socially aware and conscious. They even started working to promote social issues; to begin to look at issues far away form their community, far away from their homes. What they’re doing in the US can have big impacts elsewhere in the world. So for me, it’s rewarding to see that. Some of the people who participated on the tour also went back to Asia, went back to Thailand, went back to Cambodia and they are providing some support to local NGOs. Its not that they just went back and offered support, they went back, they learned more and then they give more and they can become sort of an agent of change, promoting, spreading news of what is happening elsewhere in the world that some people sometimes take it for granted.

USF Cambodia Customized Reality Tour 2007

Sue: What are some of the most impactful moments you have witnessed while facilitating GX Reality Tours?

Boreth: Some of the most impactful moments were when the first time I showed people around, some students from the University of San Francisco, they were young, energetic, willing to learn and experience new things, we took them to a dump site where they see lots of people and kids as old as two years old up to teenagers scavenging for whatever in the dump site they could make a few dollars and also make their living.  I think at that moment, in the students you could see the mind shift and how people react to these types of issues. Some of the students have come back and start working for Not for Sale Campaign to promote children’s rights, basic rights of people who don’t have access to education and school… I think that’s what gets me going..to see that we can make a difference. A visit like that can make a difference. A visit like that can help people change because nothing is more powerful than going to experience things, see things and then doing things afterwards. Its not just organizing a trip for people to learn, to see to experience, but to actually transition people into taking some action and doing what they believe is right. I think that’s what gets me going and why I’ve been doing work with Global Exchange since 2007 and I’m still doing it now.

Sue: What are the most compelling issues that Global Exchange members and travelers should learn about?

Devotion at Ankor Wat, Reality Tours Delegation August 2010

Boreth: You see, a lot of people in the US, they know about Cambodia mostly for the killing fields. They know about the Vietnam War, they know about the genocide in Cambodia, the killing fields in Cambodia and Angkor Wat, one of the oldest temples in Cambodia. But there’s more to it than that. The most compelling issue in Cambodia is mostly looking at poverty. After many years of war, poverty is the biggest issue. People are desperate, the majority of people are still poor, and that’s why they’re vulnerable to be trafficked; to be bought, sold and traded into different entertainment industries of the world. So those are the most compelling issues. But we should not focus on the symptom or the survival of the issue, we need to address the grassroots of the issue, which is poverty and food securities. Right now because of climate change, you look at Southeast Asia, you know Thailand and Cambodia; Cambodia is underwater now. People are going to loose their crop, their pig, their chicken, their duck, everything, their livestock. So the people are being affected by the climate change, by this flood and this pushes them further and further into poverty. So people become so desperate, they will do anything to survive. I think another big issue in Cambodia is environmental degradation. A lot of corporation companies from around the world, mostly Chinese are going there to destroy a lot of Cambodian resources. Deforestation is big, land concession is big, they take away people’s land and give the right to the corporation to grow different crops soybeans muang beans as part of the corporations trying to make big money. Also minerals, they extract minerals from the ground and again they are destroying the resources. In the future, in Cambodia, I think the biggest compelling issue, the biggest challenging issue will be environmental degradation because it impacts food security and people’s livelihoods, and destroys the social fabric, the social structure of community villages throughout the country. That’s going to be the biggest challenge. You can see that’s what’s happening now. The flooding is just the beginning of what’s to come I think.

Sue: Is there anything else that you’d like to share about your experiences as a Global Exchange in-country program officer?

The Power of Recycling and Reclaiming- A visit to a dump and meeting with SCARO, a Cambodian NGO working with garbage collectors.

Boreth: What I just want to say is that I think what Reality Tours and Global Exchange are doing in Cambodia and Thailand is great. I think we become a bridge between the West and the East and Asia. I think we build a bridge for change. We exchange information, we exchange experiences, we exchange skills, the know how, the technologies. We are connecting the world and I think this is great work that Global Exchange is doing. And linking with the institutions such as NFS and the socially responsible NGOs and enterprises. We are helping build the bridges. In doing this, we become some sort of agent of humanities and change. When we do this, we can build the world to be a better and more peaceful place for everybody, not just the rich and powerful.

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Past Cambodia Reality Tour trip participant Photo by: Tammy Gustafson

Special thanks to Sue Sullivan, Reality Tours’ intern for conducting this interview with Boreth.

Take Action!

Find out about how you can travel to Cambodia and Thailand on a Global Exchange Reality Tour.

Boreth Sun Visiting Global Exchange in San Francisco

This is the first in a two-part interview by Global Exchange Reality Tours Intern Sue Sullivan with our Cambodia and Thailand program officer, Boreth Sun. Follow along to discover what it means to be an in-country representative of Reality Tours and our partnering organization Not For Sale.

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Sue: Could you tell us about your work in Cambodia and how you got involved with the Not for Sale Campaign?

Boreth: I started working with Global Exchange in Cambodia in 2007, for the first time when I organized a trip for a group of students from USF through Global Exchange. We helped students learn about the reality on the ground what happened in Cambodia, meet people, see people, learn from the people, share stories with people and all of that.  That’s what NFS has been doing along with Global Exchange. I started organizing the trip one time and then after Global Exchange sent me an email asking me to continue leading the tours, help linking people with different agencies, different institutions, community leaders, government officials and all of that and the next thing I know I got stuck.

Sue: What is your current role with Not For Sale in Southeast Asia?

Boreth: I am the coordinator for Cambodia, helping coordinate all activities from the other side of the world with Alessandro Isola and with Malia Everette. Recently, NFS has asked me to help with some networking in Cambodia as part of their work in trying to access some quality material and products from Cambodian social enterprises. They are importing some (stuff) from Cambodia through a garment factory called, STOPStart. STOPStart I think is owned by Not for Sale and some individuals. They want to try to tap into some resources. So I’m going to help them for only the next several months to link them with the right people, custom people, licensing, tax people, legal issues and also help linking them with some NGOs that can tap into some quality sale products or just handcraft products; bags T-shirts and all of that. That’s why I got involved. So again, very similar to a Reality Tour, helping people linking to the right institutions, development agencies, community leaders, villages, all that kind of stuff.

A Visit to Ankor Wat, Reality Tours August 2010

Sue: Could you tell us a little about the work of Not for Sale in Cambodia?

Boreth: In Cambodia, NFS, really doesn’t have a lot of direct activities, what NFS does is through me in Cambodia linking NFS US with different hr NGOs to fight against human trafficking. Basically, NFS does this to link people with different institutions who are fighting human trafficking. My goal is to link them with the right agencies that are doing a lot of great work, but also helping Stop Start, a garment factory who is promoting Fair Trade and hiring some people who are victims or survivors of human trafficking to work there. I link them with different agencies like Nymo.

Welcoming Sign at NYEMO, Cambodia

Nyemo is an agency, an NGO who is working with survivors of human trafficking to make quality products, handicrafts and different fabric design and all of that. NFS is linking with them now and tapping into their products to import them to the US to sell them in different parts of the US.  Its not direct support but linking to the right social enterprises, to responsible enterprises to help promote change in Cambodia.

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We here at Reality Tours are grateful that Boreth got “stuck”. We are excited to continue deepening our relationship and working together to organize broad educational tours, customized delegations and Not For Sale advocacy journeys in the years to come to Cambodia and Thailand. With our passionate partners all over the world, we are able to ensure that tourism is ethical, socially responsible, respects human rights, and is conscious of the local environment and culture. Thus we extend a special thanks to Boreth for working with us to “Meet the People, Learn the Facts, and Make a Difference”!

Past Cambodia Reality Tour trip participant Photo by: Tammy Gustafson

Take Action! Find out about how you can travel to Cambodia and Thailand on a Global Exchange Reality Tour.

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.

I’ve personally journeyed to all these amazing nations and experienced, with other delegates, those who have been freed from exploitation and slavery, learned what it means to rebuild one’s life after having been a victim of trafficking, and engaged directly with groups and individuals on the front lines of the struggle to expose and ultimately end the trade in human lives. Each group has exchanged and supported vulnerable communities targeted by traffickers, learned effective strategies for undermining slave rings, and experienced first hand how emancipated populations rebuild their lives.

Last summer I was fortunate enough to join the Stop Human Trafficking delegation to Cambodia where I shared a room and countless hours of conversations and contemplation with Lori Lindgren Voit. Lori generously taught morning yoga classes to the group, so we started each day stretched and warmed up. Today she graciously shares her impressions with us.

Sangkhuem=Hope,  By Lori Lindgren Voit

I feel I am in some ways still “coming back” from Cambodia and the Human Trafficking delegation I was part of this past August.  I am daily connecting with people who are interested in doing a similar trip,  working on like projects or just excited to have a conversation about possible solutions in our world.  Though the experiences we had were often challenging, (visiting Tuol Sleng, the Khmer Rouge run prison and torture camp, for example) the conversations and understanding they provided were irreplaceable.  We were able to see a wide variety of centers providing shelter, education and skills to the victims of Human Trafficking.  Our multigenerational crew were able to brainstorm ideas with NGO’s and all of us would grow from the learning conversation.

One benefit of this trip has been the unexpected healing from adding effort to spread awareness and possible solutions to an ill in our world that I had previously felt powerless against. We know there are many unacceptable tragedies going on in our world.  Doing what we can to add strength to the health and education of a countries most vulnerable feels like we’ve made a change. 

I say “we” because I was lucky enough to have the backing of a yoga community. When I first thought of doing some yoga classes and having a raffle/party to raise funds and awareness for this cause, I was not sure what to expect. THEY appreciated ME for gathering like minds in a healing effort, for sharing the info gathered and holding the space for continued conversation!  I am so honored to have had the chance to share the healing with my community as well as the political inside scoop from Boreth and the clarity and humanitarian awareness from Malia our Reality Tours leaders on the ground in Cambodia.

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As Lori knows, we are not powerless in the face of this monstrous industry, and the first step towards bringing it to a halt is education. Upon return from our delegations, Reality Tours shares resources for our members to stay involved and  Not for Sale integrates delegates directly into an understanding of the nature of human trafficking in the United States and the meaning of working globally on backyard abolitionist activities. In fact, some of us here at Global Exchange, including our Reality Tours in-country tour operators, and alumni will be attending the Global Forum on Human Trafficking  October 20-22. Hope to see you there!