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Page 2 Brazil-U.S. Women's Exchange
The Brazil-U.S. Women's Exchange is a new project of Global Exchange that is producing 1) a series of exchanges between Brazilian and U.S. community organizers involved in issues of women's health, reproductive rights and violence against women; 2) a Directory of Women's Organizations in Brazil; 3) an internship program for U.S. women to volunteer with women's groups in Brazil; (4) a book on the life of Benedita da Silva, the first black woman to be elected to Brazil's Senate, and (5) speaking tours by prominent Brazilians. Thanks to a generous grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation we are helping women in the U.S. and Brazil to learn from each other, to develop leadership skills and to find creative ways of improving the health and well-being of women in both countries. The project will educate the public about key issues affecting women, and will give U.S. women practical ways to get involved with women's groups in Brazil.
Participants in the exchanges represent women's non-governmental organizations involved in policy issues and community organizing. The exchanges will include visits to women's organizations, health clinics, women's shelters and foundations that fund women's projects.
This program will focus on:
- Sharing organizing methods: How organizations structure and implement their leadership development plans; How groups develop their grassroots base through outreach.
- Exchanging ideas for developing educational programs: producing curriculum, publications, videos and publicity materials.
- Responding to attacks from the religious right: In both countries, there has been a backlash from conservative, religious groups against women's rights. Brazilian and U.S. women's movements need to share ideas about how to have a greater impact on public opinion and policy-makers.
- Discussing the impact of globalization on women's health: Women's groups in both countries are interested in discussing how the global economy affects women's health policies. This includes the policy prescriptions of international lending institutions such as the World Bank, as well as the role of multinational corporations, such as pharmaceutical companies, in women's health policy.
- Comparing the legal systems in both countries regarding the rights of women: U.S. women have shown interest in the Delegacias da Mulher (women's police stations) in Brazil, and want to know the successes and shortcomings of this bold experiment in dealing with violence against women.
GX facilitates internships with women's organizations in Brazil. For more information call or e-mail Maria Luisa Mendonça at (415) 255-7296.
Big Thanks to Sustainers
GX thanks Annie and Steve Newman, Dairne Ryan, Nancy Combs and Matthew Glasson for becoming members in our Monthly Sustainer Program (MSP). Their monthly gifts go directly to programs most in need.
Your support makes our work possible. By joining the MSP, your gifts will be used efficiently by reducing fundraising costs and providing direct support for our campaigns. We invite you to join the MSP members and make a lasting impact.
For more information, call or e-mail Wendy Khan at (800) 497-1994.
Looking for Toys Made Without Child Labor?
Global Exchange sells a wide variety of toys in our crafts stores: toys guaranteed to be made without child labor and without exploitative work practices. One of our partners is Golden Palm Enterprises, a cooperative making wooden toys in Sri Lanka, an island nation off the southeast coast of India. Golden Palm is dedicated to creating jobs in rural Sri Lanka where the farm economy has suffered from years of civil war.
The Golden Palm workshop creates employment opportunities that provide a dignified living. Workers benefit from an on-site doctor, tea and meal breaks, and excellent lighting and ventilation. They are provided with ample safety equipment and have health policies such as expectant mothers not working with any paints.
Fair Trade criteria include sustainability for the environment as well as the worker. At Golden Palm, 80% of all wood used is rubber tree wood that has been discarded after being harvested for its latex. New trees are then planted to ensure sustainability for future generations. And one of the most important child safety issues: all paints are certified non-toxic and lead free! Golden Palm is committed to community development through improving the economic conditions of its members. Global Exchange Craft Centers are proud to carry a full line of Golden Palm toys, as well as mobiles, kitchen magnets, and many other handpainted wood items.
Golden Palm workshops create educational toys that are safe, fun, and teach children about issues such as the environment and literacy. When children play with the handpainted green wooden crocodile puzzle, they learn to assemble pieces sequentially, with Roman numerals on one side and Arabic numbers on the other. The Friendly Bug toy comes with a booklet explaining the importance of many insects in pest control and pollination in the garden.
The best selling toy in our stores is a handpainted Jungle Jigsaw puzzle that is two toys in one. Children can use their imagination to create stories of yellow camels, gray elephants, striped zebras, and orange tigers with a 3-D green background. Then they use their spatial reasoning to fit the pieces together into an 8-inch square jigsaw puzzle. We're offering this toy to our membership through this newsletter at just $24 (+ shipping & handling). To order, call or e-mail Deborah at 800-477-1994. You'll have made an important commitment to supporting alternatives to child labor in the toy industry.
Fair Trade Tours to Mexico
The southern state of Chiapas is one of Mexico's most well-endowed areas, producing oil, timber, hydroelectric power, coffee and corn. Yet most people in Chiapas live in desperate poverty. Chiapas lags far behind the rest of the country in household income, health and education.
In January, Global Exchange and Equal Exchange, a worker-owned fair trade coffee company based in Boston, cosponsored a "Fair Trade Consumer Education Tour" to Chiapas. A key goal was to build awareness of the role that fair trade can play in creating a better future for farmers and artisans.
We met with representatives of NGOs, artisan groups and campesino co-ops. Many of these groups are affiliated with the Network Against Extreme Poverty in the Highlands (RECEPAC), an alliance of coffee and crafts cooperatives, and grassroots groups addressing problems of land tenure, markets and political corruption in Chiapas.
One of the groups we visited was La Uni—n Majomut, Equal Exchange's trading partner for organic Mexican coffees. Majomut, a campesino organization comprising some 1,200 members in 17 indigenous communities, was founded in 1983 to build economic alternatives for indigenous coffee farmers in the highlands. Based in San Crist—bal de las Casas, the organization assists its members in producing, processing and marketing organic coffee. Majomut helps farmers with training in organic agriculture and coffee quality. Tour participants had the opportunity to pick coffee beans and learn about the different stages of coffee production from organic growing, harvesting, and hand processing, to sorting and storage.
Through Equal Exchange and fair trade organizations in Europe, Majomut is able to sell its coffee directly, rather than through middlemen, and its members get a better price for their beans. Farmers make a better living for themselves and their families and are able to invest in the care and maintenance of their farms, while Majomut is able to invest in training programs, coffee processing equipment, and infrastructure.
For more information on Equal Exchange's fair trade coffee program, contact them at 251 Revere Street, Canton, MA 02021, (617) 830-0303.
We also visited GX trading partner J'olom Mayetic, a group of Maya-Tsotsil women producing beautiful textile products (garments, bags, shawls and house decorations) in the highlands of Chiapas. J'olom Mayetic organizes women artisans and has grown to over 500 members. They offer technical training, as well as workshops on health and education. Their products are of exceptional quality: completely handmade, beginning with the shearing, wool combing, threading, loom weaving, and embroidery. Last year a representative from J'olom Mayetic spoke at Global Exchange stores.
California Reality Tours
Beyond Borders
by Ezinda Franklin
"El mundo dividido" (the world divided) read the spray-painted words on the rusting metal border at the point where it entered the sea. Along with the other 35 participants of Global Exchange's "Beyond Borders" trip, I followed its great expanse throughout Tijuana, Mexico. On this challenging trip, we followed the great metal divide over hills, bridges and grassy fields-an imposed separation on an otherwise continuous stretch of land.
The peaceful atmosphere belies the battle being waged here. Each night, thousands of would-be migrants wait for a chance to enter the United States. Feeling out the weak spots-points the border patrol might neglect for a moment-they wait, wrapping their thin jackets around them, hoping to keep warm with the help of tin drum fires. Across a riverbed near the US-Mexico entry point, men crossed with their belongings in plastic garbage bags, watching the patrolmen who stared back at them, noting their every move. Even we, the camera-toting, curious visitors, were constantly aware of the roving, white border patrol trucks.
On both sides of the border, we met with activists who have strong opinions about how to remedy problems along the border. In San Diego, Muriel Watson has launched "Light up the Border," a citizens' action program in which U.S. residents turn their headlights onto the border to call attention to migrants who may be trying to cross illegally. With composed demeanor, she touts the merits of her program and exaggerates the number of participants. At Casa Familiar in San Ysidro, near San Diego, Andrea Skorepa tells the story of her grandfather who carried his fifth grade report card with him for over 60 years to prove-just in case he were ever asked-that he did belong in this country after all.
Carmen Valadez of Tijuana's Grupo Factor X struggles for the rights of workers in the maquila factories and stresses the needs of these workers as women. On a hill overlooking a wealthy area of Tijuana, sits 'Casa del Migrante," a halfway house of sorts, run by a priest where would-be immigrants are given a brief respite from the demands that cause them to run from Mexico. This was the heart of the Global Exchange "Beyond Borders" tour: to look into the things that separate us and how we can change things for the better. To consider all sides of a truth. Many came out of the trip with plans to return, to publicize, to send help. At the end of the trip we found ourselves in the comfortable San Diego living room of a trip participant where we talked about the 14 people who died that week trying to cross the border of this divided world.
To find out more about our Domestic Reality Tours, Click here
