We, the undersigned Certified B Corps have joined together—with the support of certification watchdog, Fair World Project —because we believe the very mission of B Lab and the integrity and relevance of B Corp Certification is at risk.

As brands, we are Certified as B Corps because progressive social impact and environmental stewardship are core to our approach to business. We believe that B Lab and the broader community of B Corp Certified brands are an important force in transitioning our economy away from extractive practices and towards economic models that truly benefit people and the planet. Because we value this community and deeply believe in what it means to be a Certified B Corp, it is imperative that we speak up now to protect the B Corp Certification and the movement it represents.

We are united in our concern about Nespresso’s recent Certification as a B Corp. Collectively, we envision a world where B Corp values can scale to include companies of any size, but this must not happen in a way that dilutes the integrity of the movement the certification stands for. Without a structurally higher certification bar and a mechanism for enforced accountability within the B Impact Assessment or certification process, we are concerned that corporations will do the bare minimum to ‘greenwash’ themselves as B Corps.

The fair trade movement was born decades ago to address the exploitative and unethical human rights abuses involved in coffee bean farming and coffee supply chains. While distinct from and broader than a fair trade certification, the B Corp Certification should nevertheless structurally build on the fair trade principle of centering human rights, and rule out historically exploitative companies who have not put remediation and restorative structures in place to benefit the people in their supply chains.

Although Nespresso has achieved the minimum currently required for certification, scoring 84 out of 200 points, Nespresso’s abysmal track record on human rights from child labor and wage theft to abuse of factory workers is well documented by the media and NGOs.  Indeed, Nespresso’s extractive business model is publicly known to be fundamentally at odds with the ethical and just future B Corps want to build and should have structurally been a barrier to Nespresso’s B Corp Certification. Structural barriers in the certification process could be improved through a more informed and thorough review of Risk Factors taking fair trade movement history and NGO expertise into account.

Nespresso’s size certainly provides additional complexity and challenges for traceability and transparency throughout its supply chains—but size must not be permission for potential child labor, worker abuse, or wage theft for large B Corps. Instead, the fact that Nespresso can achieve a score that allows them to be Certified as a B Corp and use the Certification to greenwash its business model and practices demonstrates that the B Impact Assessment scoring system and certification process is in serious need of repair.

As part of the certification announcement Nespresso expressed they intend “all viable farms to reach a living wage by 2030,” and to “improve our global approach on human rights due diligence and create a scalable Child Labour risk mapping and remediation process plan.”   However, there is currently no way for the B Impact Assessment (BIA) or certification process to measure or hold Nespresso to these self-imposed commitments. Thus, in addition to strengthening the minimum criteria for certification, B Lab must develop a protocol for holding B Corps to improve Risk Factor areas over time or face losing their B Corp Certification. 

Many of our brands have participated in the multi-year public feedback process B Lab has facilitated regarding potential updates to the B Corp Standard and voiced the need for changes. Yet we have not seen changes to the standard that sufficiently raises the bar, nor have we received a response to our suggestions or offers to engage more deeply.

Summarized here are key areas where we believe the B Impact Assessment and Certification process must improve if B Corp Certification is to maintain integrity and relevance going forward:

• Rather than a minimum total score, there must be minimum scores per Impact Business Model and per applicable Score Area.
• The B Corp Standard must center human rights in the Supply Chain Impact Business Model and reference the UN Guiding Principles on Business Human Rights framework, including a company’s responsibility to respect human rights and provide remedy and remediation for harms.
• Unless there is demonstrated evidence of remedy and remediation for harms, and course correction to prevent future harm, human rights abuses should be a non-negotiable Disqualification Factor preventing certification.
• Sourcing a majority of raw materials from non-fair trade certified supply chains, CAFOs, or industrial farming systems should be added as a Risk Factors for consumer goods companies, requiring documented improvement over time.
• Risk Factors must be reflected in scores, monitored closely over time for required improvement, and re-certification should be contingent on demonstrated improvement. If Risk Factors are not corrected over time, re-certification should be withheld.

B Lab has said it is up to the “influential community” of consumers and companies like ours to hold other companies accountable. However, we could not prevent Nespresso from certifying, and we cannot take away Nespresso’s B Corp Certification if they fail to improve—only B Lab can do that, and only if the certification requirements and process change.

As businesses dedicated to social good, we stand in solidarity with social and environmental organizations and with those most negatively impacted by Nespresso. In the interest of the movement to ‘use business as a force for good,’ we hope to see these critical improvements to the B Impact Assessment and B Corp Certification process. In turn we hope these changes can help hold Nespresso and other companies—including ourselves—accountable over time as we build an economy that is inclusive, regenerative, and just for all.

Sincerely,

All Good Products
amamus Coffee
A Stellar Co
Better apc
c|change
Café Campesino
Cooperative Coffees
Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company
Dr. Bronner’s
Elvis & Kresse
Endiro Coffee
Exilior Coffee
Fair World Project
Food Freedom Radio – AM950
Green Element
Grove Collaborative
Happy Porch
KOA+ROY
LOACOM Social Purpose Corporation
LAUDE the Label
Lotus Foods, Inc.
Mightybytes
Modern Species
ØNSK ApS
Peace Coffee
Real Phat Foods
Rivanna Natural Designs, Inc.
Sweetwater Organic Coffee
Thanksgiving Coffee Company
thinkPARALLAX
Thread Coffee Roasters
Vianova
Wholegrain Digital

If your company is a Certified B Corp, add your name here to support this call for higher standards: https://forms.gle/wPZLGg1qVJUa5SKr6

The post The B Corp Standard is at Risk appeared first on Fair World Project.

How Did We Get Here?

Small farmers, including fishers, pastoralists and indigenous people and farmworkers are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Agriculture has a long history of negative social and ecological impacts, from forced labor and slavery, Indigenous land theft, and colonialism to the destructive nature of rapid industrialization. Modern industrial agriculture is rooted in colonial models, where intensive plantation economies were set up with the goal to extract as much wealth and resources as quickly as possible, relying on slave labor theft of Indigenous land and draining natural resources.

The 1950s and 60s began a period of industrialization of agriculture around the world by developing high-yielding varieties of cereal grains that are grown with modern scientific methods of utilizing synthetic fertilizers, agrochemicals, and pesticides. This period, dubbed as the Green Revolution, was often promoted under the guise of poverty and hunger reduction but despite creating huge surpluses, hunger actually increased, genetic diversity declined, and farmers were further impoverished. Largely due to the monopolies and control of agricultural mega corporations like Monsanto (now Bayer), peasant farmers and social movements have resisted the Green Revolution’s advance since its inception, most recently with the massive 2020 Farmer Protest in India.

Agriculture as Extraction

The expansion of the global agricultural footprint is the cornerstone of extractive agricultural practices. Agriculture land becomes increasingly degraded due to industrial practices, threatening the global insect population and destroying biodiverse ecosystems. As land gets degraded, those profiting continually look to convert more productive land through deforestation and burning, displacing local, Indigenous and rural communities.

Built upon years of exploitation, agriculture’s legacy is one of deep structural human rights abuses. Farmworkers and workers across the food system are saddled with low wages, lack legal protections, retaliation for organizing and unionizing, health hazards due to pesticides and fertilizers and exacerbated dangers from climate change effects of high heats, massive flooding and hazardous air quality. Women farmers are regularly excluded from holding land rights and accessing credit, limiting their agency over their livelihoods, children and homes. Farmers and indigenous people are stripped of land and territory rights and those who fight against extraction are targeted and killed, with 227 Land Defenders killed in 2020. The symptoms of the extractive model are visible  on the farm and plantation–and they extend the conversion of national agricultural economies to export-led growth, trapping poor countries in an underdevelopment cycle.

Former colonies have remained trapped in cycles of dependence to rich countries, replicating colonial economic structures, including forced and child labor, poverty wages and unfair payments farmers’ production. Unequal free trade agreements, gutting of local and regional economies and production, transnational corporation control and exploitative development policies shackles former-colonies to global systems dominated by wealthy countries.

Agroecology and Climate Change

Although the pressure from the Green Revolution models of thinking and global capitalist economies in market and policy pushes agriculture towards monocultures and large farms, small farmers continue to feed the majority of the world. Known as the “productivity paradox,” small farmers produce more food on less land with small farmers feeding 70% of the world using only 25% of the agricultural resources.

Small, peasant and indigenous farmers practicing agroecology are building off of traditional knowledge, protecting biodiversity, and farming in ways that mimic natural land. All this while feeding the world. Agroecology is an integrated approach to integrate relationships between plants, animals, humans and the environment while taking into consideration the social aspects that need to create a sustainable and fair food system.  Unlike other concepts like “sustainable” and “organic,” which focus exclusively on practices and prohibitions, agroecology is a holistic approach that combines indigenous knowledge with academic research, farmer livelihoods and economic & social components to address the root causes of problems and seek long-term solutions.

While agroecology is highly specific to localized contexts, the various practices of agroecology (such as intercropping, traditional fishing and mobile pastoralism, integrating crops, trees, livestock and fish, manuring, compost, local seeds and animal breeds, etc.) are grounded in the same ecological principles of managing biodiversity, building life and nutrients in the soil, restoration of water, and energy conservation.

False Promises and Corporate Capture

Corporations and institutions are working to greenwash conventional agriculture as “regenerative” or “climate-smart” or “carbon farming”, all while ignoring the power inequity in the food system and the material conditions of farmers, farmworkers and other workers from the global majority. “Carbon Markets” are emerging in the agriculture sector as dirty industries look to “offset” their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through schemes that purport to enhance agricultural soil’s capacity to sequester carbon. Commoditizing carbon only enriches wealthy landowners, all while incentivizing and rewarding activities that violate human rights, like land grabbing and displacing Indigenous, rural and forest communities from their land.

Despite consensus on the destructive impacts of industrial agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other bodies of the United Nations continue to prioritize the interests of transnational corporations and agribusiness over significantly investing in community-driven agroecological solutions.

Peasant and Farmer Movement Solutions

Global movements of peasants, smallholder farmers, Indigenous people and farmworkers are not just pushing back on the industrialized food system that is fueling the climate crisis, destroying local ecosystems and biodiversity and violating human rights. Instead, they are actively putting into practice a vision that supports people and the planet.

 La Via Campesina, a movement of  millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers, has been organizing for food sovereignty since the 1990s. Food sovereignty is defined as “the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It is based on a model of small-scale sustainable production benefiting communities and the environment. It includes the struggle for land and genuine agrarian reform that ensures that the rights to use and manage lands, territories, water, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those who produce food and not of the corporate sector.” Smallholder farmers and peasant communities are already building off of a strong history of practicing alternatives to our industrial, corporate dominated food system that prioritize life over profits.

Seed Sovereignty in Puerto Rico

A large component of the fight for agroecology and food sovereignty is the fight for seed sovereignty. Restoring biodiversity to our food system and our planet is critical to adapt agricultural systems to climate change. According to the United Nations, 75 percent of crop diversity has been lost over the past century, largely due to corporate control of seeds, Green Revolution-era seed laws, intellectual property claims and gene modification.

Puerto Rico is one of the world’s largest GMO seed producers (Genetically Modified Organism), with Monsanto and Bayer producing the majority of soybean and cottonseed used in the United States on the island. El Departamento de la Comida, a grassroots collective in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and many other grassroots organizations, are creating alternatives to federal agencies and multinational corporations for food and farming through seed-saving and food sovereignty. Seed sovereignty is about more than just preserving biodiversity but also allows Puerto Ricans, like other communities, to reclaim an identity that has for many generations been an object of attack, colonization, and erasure. Seed saving is an ancient, ancestral practice and communities are continually fighting for seed sovereignty and against the industrialization and privatization of seed.

Agroforestry in Peru

Cooperativa Agraria Cafetalera Pangoa (CAC Pangoa) is a cooperative of 691 farmers and families growing coffee and cacao in San Martin de Pangoa, Peru. CAC Pangoa is focusing on growing coffee and cocoa diversified agroforestry systems to continue to improve soil health, provide shade to cocoa and coffee, and provide timber and fuel wood. Working to produce locally made organic inputs to avoid the pollution caused by transporting it over long distances, Pangoa produces kobashi organic fertilizer for cooperative members. José Luis Arroyo Unchupaico from CAC Pangoa notes that Climate change has created more pests and diseases for cocoa farmers in the region, organic farming and agroforestry have helped manage and reduce these pests and disease threats.

Finca Biodinámica in Honduras

Café Orgánico Marcala (COMSA) and the ‘Finca Biodinámica’, Biodynamic Farm, is based on an organic agricultural system that is fundamentally oriented to life, maintaining the health of the soils, the ecosystems that surround it and the people who are in relation to it. COMSA is a leader in organic, biodynamic and agroecological practices of protecting soil with organic material, providing the necessary nutrients for crops using soil microorganisms, implementing diverse agroforestry practices and planting according to natural cycles. The ‘Finca Biodynámica’ is about more than soil, carbon sequestration and crops, but focuses on developing a conscious connection with local ecosystems, communities and Mother Earth.

Food sovereignty and agroecology is rooted around the sharing of rural, local and Indigenous knowledge. COMSA focuses on sharing knowledge and community with future generations through the COMSA International School, where the cooperative has created a schooling system rooted in respect and care for the environment, for oneself and for the community. ‘To survive we must think and act differently than the conventional [agriculture] systems, to evolve with a view on the long-term, diversifying, working with our children’

Farmworker Organizing in Honduras

The Honduran farm worker union STAS (El Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares) has been at the forefront of organizing and representing farmworkers in Honduras. Honduras is one of leading exporters of winter fresh produce destined for the US market. Honduras also has a long history of corrupt US-backed governments and abysmal working conditions. In recent years, Honduras has witnessed the deadly combination of eroding human rights conditions and supercharged climatic disasters, including massive flooding.

According to STAS organizer, Ahrax Mayorga, “Honduras is a classic ‘Banana Republic’ with a history of over 100 years of banana production…causing a blight on the landscape, converting natural land and small farms to disasters.” Multinational corporations, like Fyffes’ and their local subsidiaries have continued a model of exploitation of Honduran works and environment alike. Farmworker unions, like STAS, have played a key role in advocating for workers’ rights across the globe. In addition to advocating for essential rights, like collective bargaining agreements, farmworker unions are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, fighting for worker health safety. “Chemical agriculture, along with heat stress, has created a health crisis for farmworkers, happening at the exact time that agriculture corporations are eliminating health benefits and protections for workers and COVID is hitting the countryside,” said Mayorga.

Fair Trade and Food Sovereignty in Nicaragua

Fair trade’s roots are deep in Nicaragua. PRODECOOP, a secondary coffee cooperative in Nicaragua has been at the center of the fair trade movement for almost 30 years. PRODECOOP not only facilitates the export of fair trade coffee for some 38 village-level cooperatives, but provides ongoing farmer extension, training and credit services. These services are particularly critical in the context of coffee in Central America, as coffee farmers have confronted the ongoing coffee pricing crisis, coupled with climate change driven pests and diseases, like “La Roya.”

Key to PRODECOOP’s efforts in recent years has been a focus on agroecology and diversification for food sovereignty. According to Rosalba Gonzalez Baquedano, “We cannot confront climate change, take care of the environment and produce coffee organically without fair trade. Fair trade is our way to have a dignified life and a healthy community.” However, to address the climate crisis in rural Nicaragua is not cheap. As Gonzalez Baquedana mentions, “Adapting to climate change is very expensive for farmers. It requires additional labor, investing in resilient species and improving soil health. Farmers must be paid fairly for the investment we are making in producing health and organic crops.”

Movement of Rural Landless Workers Brazil

The Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST) is a peasant social movement fighting for land, agrarian reform, food sovereignty and social justice in alignment with la Via Campesina  in Brazil. MST has launched a National Plan to Plant Trees and Produce Healthy Food initiative to plant 100 million trees and promote community-led agroforestry in response to the record deforestation and fires as well as the policies of the Bolsonaro government.

The goal is to recover degraded areas through the implementation of agroforestry and promotion of food sovereignty. Alongside this, they fight environmental destruction from agribusiness and mining. MST builds upon traditional, indigenous and peasant knowledge through Campesinas a Campesinas (Farmer-to-Farmer) trainings where peasants come together and share knowledge and organize around agro-ecological practices. MST is actively organizing for Popular Agrarian Reform that aims to redistribute land, produce healthy food for the Brazilian people, preserve the environment (water, land, biodiversity and air), confront all forms of violence and create new social relationships that prioritize people and the planet.

Taking Action for Food Justice & Climate Justice

In order to combat climate change we need strong, multi-faceted climate action. Achieving true climate justice requires systemic change at policy level, divestment from fossil fuels, overhaul of the big-agriculture industry, ensuring human rights and land rights for indigenous communities along with a disruption of all systems of inequality. The solutions to our food system, and its impact on the planet, already exist. Small-scale farmers practicing agroecology and food sovereignty are tackling the root causes of the climate crisis, hunger and poverty. Yet, there are still huge barriers for farmers looking to transition to agroecological practices, from lack of access to financial support, corporate control of seeds and resources to structural barriers like World Trade Organization (WTO), which prioritizes corporate profit, implements policies that human rights and destroy the environment and massively invests in food and farming systems.

Take Action for Climate Justice and a Fair Food System:

• Fight back against false corporate solutions that don’t actually address power and stand in solidarity with peasant farmers fighting for just, equitable, healthy, and sustainable food systems!
• Support worker-led organizing that counters corporate power. Give to strike funds, join in on the picket line, call, send letters or sign petitions to support strikers demands.
• Support for alternative economic models by buying fair trade and locally made products and advocating for national, state and local policies to grow the movement for just and ecological food and agriculture systems.
• Support grassroots-led agroforestry projects that support communities as they regenerate the land, support community livelihoods and fight for food sovereignty.
• Fight corporate control of agriculture. Take action by fighting funding for the expansion of factory farms, supporting initiatives like the Real Meals campaign and the Good Food Purchasing Program which fights for fair food systems on campuses, local school districts and city governments.

The post The Climate Crisis, COP26 and Small-Farmer Solutions appeared first on Fair World Project.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the chocolate industry’s promise to end child labour in the cocoa sector of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, a commitment they made under the 2001 Harkin-Engel Protocol and renewed again with the 2010 Framework of Action. Furthermore, it is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.

This year should have been a landmark in the fight against child labour in cocoa. Instead, the cocoa sector as a whole has been conspicuously quiet on this topic.

This year should have been a landmark in the fight against child labour in cocoa. Instead, the cocoa sector as a whole has been conspicuously quiet on this topic.

Child labour is still a reality on West African cocoa farms, and there is strong evidence that forced labor continues in the sector as well. Recent reports – such as Ghana’s GLSS 7 survey and the study of the University of Chicago commissioned by the United States government – show that close to 1.5 million children are engaged in hazardous or age-inappropriate work on cocoa farms in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. The vast majority of these child labourers are exposed to the worst forms of child labour, such as carrying heavy loads, working with dangerous tools and increasing exposure to harmful agrochemicals.

After two decades of rhetoric, voluntary initiatives, and pilot projects, it is clearer than ever that ambitious, sector-wide action is needed, coupled with binding regulations, to address both child labour and the poverty that lies at its root.

These solutions must include regulations for mandatory human rights due diligence for companies operating in all major cocoa consuming countries.

These solutions must include regulations for mandatory human rights due diligence for companies operating in all major cocoa consuming countries, including avenues for legal remedy in those companies’ home countries. We note with interest the developments around regulations in the EU, although the announced delays are concerning. We also observe that the United States – the world’s number one cocoa consuming country – is particularly lagging in regulatory developments on this issue.

The industry, however, cannot use a lack of regulation as an excuse not to shoulder their own responsibility. As such, every chocolate and cocoa company should have a system in place that monitors and remediates child labour in all of their value chains with a child labour risk. The impact of these systems must be communicated publicly and transparently in a way that enables meaningful participation and access to remedy for workers and their representatives.

In parallel, effective partnerships between producer and consumer countries are needed to work on the necessary enabling environment. These must be developed in a much more inclusive manner than previous attempts, bringing in civil society organisations, independent trade unions, local communities and farmer representatives. Adequate resources must be provided to enable these local actors to participate as equals in the development and implementation of solutions.

Child labour can only be effectively tackled if its root causes are also adequately addressed.

Child labour can only be effectively tackled if its root causes are also adequately addressed. As such, the cocoa sector must ensure that child labour approaches are deeply embedded into realistic and ambitious strategies to achieve a living income for all cocoa households. Such strategies must include the payment of fair and just remuneration at the farm gate; prices need to be sufficient to provide a living income. There are clear calculations available for Living Income Reference Prices, which are not even close to being met.

In all, this process must deliver time bound and measurable action plans that are ambitious enough to cover the full scope of the challenge ahead.

It is time that the cocoa sector lived up to its promises and started to deliver on a sector wide and ambitious plan to tackle child labour and poverty. The industry’s collective silence this year is shameful and inappropriate.

Signatories 

ABVV/FGTB HORVAL – Belgium 

Be Slavery Free – Australia

Child Labour Coalition – United States

Conservation Alliance International – Ghana

COOPASA – Côte d’Ivoire

COOPS Ecam M’bloussouè – Côte d’Ivoire 

EcoCare Ghana – Ghana

Fair Trade Advocacy Office – Belgium

Fair World Project – United States

Fairtrade – Global 

Forum Fairer Handel e.V. – Germany Freedom United – Global 

Global Media Foundation – Ghana Green America – United States 

Inades Formation Côte d’Ivoire – Côte d’Ivoire 

Indigenous Women Empowerment Network – Ghana

INKOTA-netzwerk – Germany International Rights Advocates – United States 

ISCC – Germany 

Mighty Earth – United States 

ONG GAYA – Côte d’Ivoire 

Oxfam – Global 

Public Eye – Switzerland 

Rainforest Alliance – Global 

Réseau des Jeunes Entrepreneurs de Côte d’Ivoire (REJECI) – Côte d’Ivoire

SchokoFair-Stoppt Kinderarbeit! – Germany 

SEND GHANA – Ghana 

Solidaridad Europe 

Solidaridad West Africa 

Südwind – Austria 

SÜDWIND-Institute – Germany 

The Human Trafficking Legal Center – United States 

Tropenbos Ghana – Ghana 

VOICE Network – Global 

World Fair Trade Organization – Global 

Photo Credit: Tetiana Bykovets – Unsplash – @tetiana_bykovets

The post Global Statement Against Child Labor in Cocoa appeared first on Fair World Project.

Last Monday, George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer who put a knee to his neck for over eight minutes as three fellow officers stood by, ignoring Floyd’s pleas for help. A few weeks before that, the story of Ahmaud Arbery got national attention: out for his morning jog, Arbery was shot to death by two white men, a former police officer and his son. Then the story of Breonna Taylor, killed by police barging into her home and shooting her while she slept.  And the story of Tony McCade, a Black transgender man shot by the police in Tallahassee, Florida.

These deaths are just the most recent. There is a long, long history of violence against Black people in the U.S., violence that is now being videoed and replayed so that all people bear witness. These deaths are not an anomaly. Black men are 3 times more likely to be killed by the police than white men Black men are 3 times more likely to be killed by the police than white men.

These deaths are occurring in the midst of a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted communities of color, with Black people again the hardest hit, dying at almost three times the rate of white people. These statistics illustrate the impacts of long-standing, institutionalized racism within our society.

The disproportionate force and militarization of police that we see all over the news right now has for too long been a reality in too many communities across the country. The past few weeks have shown examples of this double standard and how it plays out every day. White demonstrators calling for an end to public health measures such as stay-at-home orders during the pandemic were handled gently by police despite being heavily armed. The power dynamics of white privilege and anti-Blackness play out every day in our communities. Whether or not we see them often depends on our own place on the spectrum of privilege.

Fair World Project stands with all those who call for justice. And we recognize that the problem we collectively face is more than just a few bad apples. Our global food and farming systems are built upon centuries of exploitation of Black labor and Black lives. The ways we grow and trade our food are shaped by centuries of slavery and colonization. We also recognize the skill, knowledge, and experience that Black people have contributed to the ways we grow and prepare food. There can be no food justice, no fair trade without racial justice.

We say Black Lives Matter because our plantation farm system is built on the premise that they don’t. We say Black Lives Matter because our jobs are built upon a minimum wage system that is built on the premise that they don’t. We say Black Lives Matter because our law enforcement acts like they don’t.

We support all those who march and who call for justice for George Floyd, and for all who have been killed and harmed by the systems we live within, systems of white supremacy.

Only when there is justice for those most marginalized can we truly have the just economy and the fair food system we work for every day.

The Movement for Black Lives is calling on us all to make this week, June 1-5, a week of action In Defense of Black Lives. In their words, “This is an opportunity to uplift and fight alongside those turning up in the streets and on the airwaves.”

In solidarity for a more just world,

The Fair World Project Team.

The post No Food Justice without Racial Justice appeared first on Fair World Project.

Food sovereignty is a feminist issue. Food production, harmonious social relations and balance with nature is the fabric of life that is entwined with and embodied in women. The onset of patriarchy, a structural system of domination more pronounced in capitalist relations, has disrupted balance in social relations. Now, women are exploited for profit. Their economic, social, legal and political rights are not fully recognized, and public policies fail to guarantee their equal social and economic participation. Yet, they are the majority of food producers and continue to do unpaid food-related care work (processing, preparing, storing, seed saving, etc.). Their rights — access to land, support services and legal recognition — receive minimal policy attention and are overlooked by many researchers and experts.

The Crisis of Global Capitalism is a Feminist Issue

With the current deepening crisis of global capitalism, peasant women continue to lose their lands, territories and natural resources, and their work, lives and bodies are increasingly being exploited for profit. They are now more vulnerable to prostitution, human trafficking and sexual exploitation as a result of displacement and forced immigration.

Peasant women have, however, not been passive when faced with this economic and social aggression. They have organized to fight and resist, and their actions have manifested in various forms: confrontational and militant, celebratory, restitutive and emancipative, transformative and reassuring. Women in La Via Campesina are part of this struggle. Since 1993, they have been fighting for their rights and against patriarchy and capitalism. They are at the forefront of generating local knowledge, building and shaping social justice, promoting identity and culture, and strengthening the vision of a new society founded on gender relations based on dignity, justice, equality and equity.

The key point that differentiates the struggle of peasant women inside La Via Campesina from other feminist movements is called “Popular Peasant Feminism,” named by Latin American women inside La Via Campesina. Peasant women demand the right to equal participation with peasant men in the struggles to defend rural life and Mother Earth, and to build a different and more just society. They do not want a separate women’s movement; rather, they want to be recognized as central to the larger struggle for a different society, with different relations between women and men, and between humanity and nature.

What is Popular Peasant Feminism?

Peasant feminism differentiates itself from other forms of feminism that are urban-centered, middle-class, and/or from wealthy countries. The Latin Americans say their feminism is “peasant” because it comes from the countryside and not from the city, and “popular” because it is a feminism of the “popular classes” (peasants, family farmers, indigenous people, farmworkers, etc.) and not of the middle and upper classes. They do not want to be separate from men; rather, they want women and men to walk together as equal partners in a larger struggle. They do at times struggle against men – but inside of their movement, not separate from it – to have their leadership and participation be fully recognized. In this struggle, they have won the right to equal representation and participation (gender parity) in all spaces of debate, decision-making, representation and training inside La Via Campesina.

Ending Violence Against Women

Women have made combating violence against women a key priority of La Via Campesina. The movement has set November 25th as its “International Day against Violence against Women.” This campaign launched in 2008. Through calls to action on March 8th, International Women’s Day, as well as on November 25th, women are building alliances and strengthening the campaign to pressure governments to comply with agreements and international treaties, and to implement public policies to eradicate violence against women.

In 2012, women in La Via Campesina prepared a booklet to guide and encourage debate and discussion on the subject of violence against women. Other materials, such as the Rural Women Manifesto, have been prepared to define the struggle of women and strategies for action. The women have ensured that their issues are present in all campaigns, giving more visibility to the violence that rural women suffer, and denouncing and carrying out actions against such violence.

Women for Food Sovereignty

Peasant women have been confronting patriarchy and capitalism through their collective fight for food sovereignty and feminism. Women are key in the struggle to defend peasant land and territory. When land grabbers send police, thugs and private security companies to evict peasants, it is often women who are on the front lines of confrontation. Their bravery in the face of physical violence has won them respect in the peasant struggle. Women have been central to La Via Campesina’s definition of food sovereignty, helping ground it in the production of healthy food for a peasant family’s own consumption. And they have used their voices inside peasant households, communities and organizations to stop the use of dangerous pesticides and to lead the agroecological transformation of peasant family farming.

Agroecology Protects Womens’ Rights

Women are building resilient agricultural systems based on agroecological farming practices that not only improve food production but that are also in harmony with nature. Through agroecology, women’s rights are protected and realized, and not just as mothers and caregivers in the home. Agroecology implies their full participation in the social and political life of the community, ensuring equal and equitable access to and control over land, water, seeds and other means of production with autonomy and freedom. Horizontal learning as a result of agroecology promotes collectiveness, which improves social integration and cohesion, a key societal foundation. This creates social conditions that erode patriarchal barriers and promote new gender relations.

Agroecology has fostered shared decision-making in households, as it promotes complementary roles for both women and men as they seek to improve their livelihoods and family well-being, thus breaking patriarchal barriers that confine women to domestic roles. Through the co-creation of knowledge, women continue to assert their rights to strengthen their roles. By sharing ideas and knowledge, women gain the capacity to organize and lobby for favorable agricultural policies and to understand how government structures operate.

Women are forging new alliances with other farmers, peasants and progressive researchers to rethink the ways of farming that do not harm the environment and Mother Earth.

Preserving Biodiversity: Women in the Struggle for Seed Sovereignty

Women are the custodians of seeds and play a big role in keeping cultural eating habits and traditional practices alive. As we face climate change in Africa, Asia and Latin America, women are leading the fight against hunger and poverty through food diversification and sustainable farming. They know the best varieties and their importance to family health, as well as how to preserve heirloom seeds. Women have been brave in the struggles of saving and exchanging seeds, irrespective of national and regional seed laws that criminalize such activities.

Women’s experiences with these crops in their communities and families is a formidable tide that goes against corporate seed industries seeking to control and homogenize our food systems. The corporations want to exploit local indigenous seed knowledge systems and introduce their own hybrid and GMO seeds to the developing world. Based on their experiential knowledge of peasant seeds and their uses, women in La Via Campesina are at the forefront of the struggle to protect seeds, the heritage of their people, for the good of humanity. They hold seed campaigns at all levels in their respective countries and are continuously organizing seed exchanges and participating in conferences and marches, at times being arrested and jailed, or even killed, for speaking out.

Women are at the forefront of preserving the invaluable community-based seed systems, where the bulk of seed diversity is found and evolving. Through La Via Campesina, women are engaging their governments and United Nations bodies, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to recognize the Seed Treaty (International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture) and the Convention on Biodiversity.

Gender Equity is Key to True Food Sovereignty

Women successfully transformed the organizational structure and internal functioning of La Via Campesina and have evolved new gender relations over the years. Women in the movement are now able to shape their identities and define their struggles through collective, practical actions to end violence against women everywhere. They have contributed to the feminist struggle and theory with the concept of Popular Peasant Feminism. They have built a universal, broad, democratic movement committed to the defense of peasant agriculture, food sovereignty and the struggle for land, territory, justice, equality and dignity for women and men in the countryside.

Women’s rights to land, inheritance and decision-making have all improved in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Their struggles forge important alliances and build unity within the central struggle against the capitalist and patriarchal system for a new, truly fair society based on equality among men and women. Despite the ideological, political and legislative progress made to date, more work is required. Structural violence against women is on the rise due to worsening global economic and ecological crises. Recent increased criminalization and killings of women pose new obstacles, but they are not stopping the movement. We must all – men and women – work together to achieve a new society based on food sovereignty.

Download the Full Article [.pdf]

The post Keeping the Struggles of Peasant Women Alive appeared first on Fair World Project.

Sexual assault, harassment and other forms of gender-based violence threaten millions of women workers around the world and violate their human rights. Lacking power and resources, none suffer more than low-wage women workers. And in the isolated, under-regulated environment of U.S. agriculture, gender-based violence is severe and ubiquitous. In California’s Central Valley, 80% of farmworker women surveyed reported being sexually harassed or assaulted.¹ Fearing retaliation and facing barriers to filing legal complaints, many women elect to suffer abuse rather than report it and risk the consequences. For those few complaints successfully filed, judgments take years and are often uncollectable from defunct employers. Women are left with little choice but to accept humiliating treatment in order to earn a meager living.

Until now.

Through the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) Fair Food Program, sexual assault has been eliminated from farms in seven states where 35,000 U.S. farmworkers labor. Yes, you read that right. Eliminated. And there is more. Sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence are being actively prevented.² This stunning achievement, in an industry notorious for sexual violence, comes from a powerful new paradigm of human rights protection: Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR).

Worker-driven Social Responsibility: A New Model to Protect Workers

Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) was born in the crucible of crushing demand by global retail brands for cheap produce and products, that exerts a downward pressure on prices that renders workers at the bottom of supply chains ever more vulnerable. Change was possible, however, when workers in Immokalee realized that this market force could be channeled to enforce their human rights.

Worker-driven Social Responsibility has achieved unprecedented results because it originated from workers whose lives and livelihoods depend on ending these abuses, and because consumers of conscience are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them, demanding that corporations guarantee humane working conditions. Its hallmarks are:

• Legally-binding agreements between global brands and worker organizations;
• Worker participation in program design, monitoring and enforcement;
• Deep-dive auditing by an independent monitor; and
• Market consequences for suppliers who fail to comply.

Importantly, WSR did not begin as a theory; it grew from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food and the operation of its Fair Food Program. Through the campaign, thousands of consumers united with farmworkers in vibrant, massive, direct actions and public argument convincing brands to sign legally-binding agreements with the CIW. These first-of-their-kind agreements form the bedrock of the Fair Food Program.³ Worker-driven Social Responsibility was further strengthened through the design and implementation of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, underscoring the new paradigm’s replicability and exponential potential for realizing human rights for millions of workers.

Succeeding where Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has Failed

Worker-driven Social Responsibility stands in stark contrast to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Developed without worker participation, CSR’s generic, voluntary standards lack mechanisms for serious monitoring or rigorous enforcement. Constructed to protect brands, not workers, CSR has taken its toll on workers’ lives with grueling exploitative conditions.⁴ But consumers are seeing through these schemes. Even now, hundreds of thousands of consumers are boycotting Wendy’s, demanding that the company join the Fair Food Program.⁵

Key Lessons for Ending Gender-Based Violence

The Worker-driven Social Responsibility model’s achievement in ending gender-based violence in the Fair Food Program offers some key lessons for ending it elsewhere:

• Redress the imbalance of power through legally-binding agreements with consequences. The root cause of sexual violence in the workplace is the imbalance of power between workers and employers. The Fair Food Program corrects that imbalance by backing up workers’ rights with the purchasing power of some of the world’s biggest-name brands like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. The risk of losing the ability to sell to fourteen of these massive retailers creates true accountability for growers by making the costs of not policing and correcting abuses skyrocket.
• Provide worker-to-worker training on rights and the ability to report without fear of retaliation. Sexual assault and harassment are crimes of power and opportunity. Workers are present in the field where abuses occur, whenever they occur. Trained in their rights, equipped with the ability to report problems through multiple channels, including a 24×7 confidential hotline, and protected from retaliation, thousands of farmworkers have become front-line monitors of their own rights, leaving bad actors nowhere to commit their crimes.
• Set serious consequences for perpetrators and bystanders. Since the program’s inception in 2011, thirty-six supervisors have been disciplined for sexual harassment, and twelve of those supervisors have been terminated and are therefore no longer able to work on Fair Food Program farms. The removal of notorious supervisors who preyed on women increased worker confidence in the confidential complaint system. The program also requires field supervisors who witness sexual abuse to intervene and report it, or else face disciplinary action.⁶
• Monitor conditions; swiftly investigate; require and assist with compliance. The Fair Food Standards Council oversees the Fair Food Program, undertaking deep-dive audits (interviewing 50-100% of workers on farms), conducting investigations of complaints immediately and swiftly (usually within three weeks), rendering judgments, and offering compliance assistance.

Sexual Assault and Harassment Are Not Inevitable

Worker-driven Social Responsibility is spreading. The Equal Opportunity Commission’s Select Taskforce singled out the Fair Food Program, calling it a “radically different accountability mechanism,” and adopted many of those mechanisms as core recommendations in its landmark 2016 report.⁷ Worker-driven Social Responsibility’s power to protect rights inspired the launch of Migrant Justice’s Milk with Dignity program.⁸ And the Model Alliance is exploring how to deploy Worker-driven Social Responsibility in the fashion industry.⁹

We now know that sexual assault and harassment are not inevitable, even in the harshest of working environments. At a time when our nation – and indeed the world – is searching for solutions, a proven one is already at hand in Worker-driven Social Responsibility.

Download the Full Article [.pdf]

For more information, see the recent report Now the Fear is Gone, which goes into greater detail on how the WSR model is advancing gender justice: wsr-network.org/resource/now-the-fear-is-gone.

1. Cited by Human Rights Watch in “Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the U.S. to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment,” 2012.
2. See the Fair Food Program 2017 Report, p. 20, at fairfoodstandards.org/reports (accessed May 7, 2018).
3. See ciw-online.org and fairfoodprogram.org. Fourteen retail food corporations currently participate in the Fair Food Program.
4. The Rana Plaza building collapse, which killed 1,138 workers in 2013, was the deadliest (but not the first) disaster in the garment industry to demonstrate the perilous cost of the CSR approach. See wsr-network.org.
5. See boycott-wendys.org.
6. See the Fair Food Program 2017 Report at fairfoodstandards.org/reports (accessed May 9, 2018).
7. See ciw-online.org/blog/2016/07/eeoc-singles-out-fair-food-program/ and gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/report.cfm (accessed May 7, 2018).
8. See wsr-network.org/success-stories/milk-with-dignity/ (accessed May 7, 2018).
9. See modelalliance.org.

The post How Worker-Driven Social Responsibility is Ending Gender-Based Violence appeared first on Fair World Project.

Katherine* wiped the sweat off her brow as she labored under the blistering Kenyan sun, planting 100 new mango seedlings. Katherine lives with her husband, son and daughters on a parcel of land her husband inherited from his father. With the decline of the cotton industry a few years prior, her husband had decided that the family should begin cultivating mango trees. In the semi-arid Machakos County of Kenya, there were few other options that the family could consider for a cash crop.

Nine years later, Katherine’s mango trees are now producing the popular apple mango variety, a sought-after variety in the fresh export and domestic market. In addition to tending the subsistence crops her family depends on for food, she spends her time taking care of the mango trees: applying fertilizers and pest control, fending off animals, and harvesting at the season’s end.

Despite her efforts, Katherine is not able to enjoy the fruits of her labor at harvest time. In Katherine’s community, men are customarily viewed as the land and farm owners; as the owners, they can decide what gets planted, what the crop is sold for, and how that income is used. Her husband arranges a sale with a buyer and pockets the proceeds. Though he tells her that the money has been deposited into their shared bank account, she finds only a small amount there. Although he does not say it directly, she is quite sure he has squandered most of her hard-earned income on a popular drug, khat.

Land Rights for Women: Equal Only on Paper

Katherine’s experience is not unique. Kenya’s constitution recognizes equal rights to land and property for women. In practice, however, women have weaker rights to land than their male counterparts. And why does this matter? Strong rights to own, use, control and transfer land can empower a woman within her household, giving her a greater say in decision-making, such as over how to spend proceeds from crops grown on the land.

Katherine’s experience is also not unique to Kenya. In too many places, women’s claim to the land they rely on for food, income and shelter is through their relationships with male relatives. Even when laws recognize gender equality, customary norms and practices can entrench upon women’s insecure land rights.

This gap between policy and practice continues to drive gender inequality in many parts of the world. Closing the gap could have major implications for post-harvest food spoilage, which reduces the incomes of smallholders like Katherine and adds pressure to food systems that are already overextended – indeed, more than 40% of fruits and vegetables in developing regions spoil before they reach the table.

Food Waste: Another Consequence of Gender Inequality

As part of its YieldWise Initiative, the Rockefeller Foundation is addressing post-harvest losses across four value chains in three African countries (Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria). In Kenya, the initiative is working with mango farmers to help reduce food losses by at least 50% to help farmers achieve more sustainable livelihoods.

Through the YieldWise Initiative¹, Katherine recently registered to participate in a new program to learn additional skills in pesticide application, harvesting techniques and post-harvest storage. The program also promised to connect her to new buyers and teach her about credit options. Katherine hopes that, with the new skills and opportunities she gains through the program, her family can use the increased income to purchase an irrigation tank and pay for her children’s school fees.

In conversations with Katherine and women like her, it is clear that many women believe the YieldWise Initiative is helping mango farmers like them understand how to use pesticides and gain access to buyers. But they also articulate that there are some underlying challenges and structural barriers that need to be addressed for them to fully take advantage of the initiative.

Empowering Women for Better Livelihoods

It is not only married women like Katherine who feel the impacts of structural barriers like insecure land rights. As women’s rights to land are dependent on male relationships, those rights may be vulnerable when those relationships change. In some communities where there are stronger customary rights for widows to inherit plots of land held in their husband’s name, widows reported that mango sales were an invaluable income source to support their households. Where such provisions for widows do not exist, however, women reported being chased off the land (often by brothers-in-law) after their husband’s death – denying them a critical asset for earning a livelihood.

In an assessment commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation to better understand how land-related challenges could impact YieldWise Initiative implementation, Landesa identified insecure land rights of women as one of the biggest risks the initiative should consider.

Some project implementers are already taking measures to address these challenges. Initiative partner TechnoServe 
implements a participation quota to ensure the participation of women in project activities. Some conscientious buyers will require multiple members of the household to be present at the point of sale; others have worked out informal arrangements with several families to make mango payments directly to the children’s schools, sometimes by setting up installment payments.

As one implementing partner noted, greater empowerment in household decision-making could help women like Katherine to finally enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Learn more about the initiative: bit.ly/YieldWise

Download the Full Article [.pdf]

*Note that the name and some personally identifiable details have been modified to protect the subject’s identity.

The post Her Labor, His Land? How Insecure Land Rights Undermine Women and Contribute to Food Insecurity in Kenya appeared first on Fair World Project.

Since 2006, Alaffia has funded maternal health care for disadvantaged women in our fair trade supplier communities in West Africa. In 2012, we expanded the program to ensure prenatal and delivery care are available specifically to women who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). Abidé Awesso, a licensed midwife and director of our maternal program at the time, identified FGM as the leading contributor to pregnancy and birth-related complications and deaths in the Bassar region of Togo. At first, our goal was to make sure these women got the care and support they needed to have a healthy pregnancy and delivery, but after the first year, Abidé convinced us of the additional benefit of conducting FGM eradication and awareness activities in our communities.

For Alaffia, Maternal Health is Key to Ending Poverty

Last year, I sat down with Abidé to talk about our FGM program and asked her to give a little background on the practice in Togo, and why the work Alaffia is doing in the communities is so important to women’s health now and in the future. These are excerpts from our conversation.

Can you speak a little about the history of FGM, or “excision” as it is known in Togo, in the Bassar region?
Excision can happen in any of the ethnic groups in Bassar. There is no age for excision; it can be done from birth to eighteen. It is usually due to tradition, to prevent the woman from desiring men other than her husband. The older women in the communities perform FGM on their children and grandchildren because it is believed that they will find better husbands.

What are the consequences of FGM for the girls/women?
We midwives see that excised women often have problems during childbirth. When an excised woman comes to the hospital to give birth, we know that the scarring from excision will impede the stretching of the vagina, which complicates childbirth. The baby cannot come out, which causes fatal oxygen deprivation for the baby, and the baby dies or is disabled. When a woman forces the baby out, it is she who will tear, suffer and possibly die either from bleeding or infection.

Conducting Culturally Sensitive Outreach

How does Alaffia approach FGM awareness outreach in the communities?
To help these women, Alaffia organizes awareness training on the dangers and consequences of excision. From time to time, we go from house to house to talk to women individually, because when we train in a group, they are ashamed to ask questions. In her own house, a woman can freely ask questions and tell us what happened when she was excised. We always conduct awareness training on the consequences of excision, including the physical consequences of infection, sterility and even death, as well as the psychological consequences of shame and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

How have Alaffia’s activities been received in the communities?
In the beginning, we saw a lot of resistance, especially with the older women who thought that we were judging their traditions. Now that their daughters and granddaughters have been saved, their attitudes are changing. Actually, many people have understood why they should no longer excise women. We even have young men explaining to community elders that they do not want this to happen to their wives.

Fair Trade is Supporting Women

Do you have any other thoughts you want to tell us about FGM?
In Togo, we have seen that there are too many maternal and infant deaths because of FGM and poverty. We are encouraged to see young people changing their minds about FGM. We also see that women, who have their own money from participating in the fair trade collectives, are making the decision to refuse FGM, for themselves and for their daughters. So, we are hopeful and encouraged that we will eventually be able to reduce FGM to 0% in Togo.

Download the Full Article [.pdf]

The post Fair Trade for Women’s Health appeared first on Fair World Project.

Find them online or at your favorite natural food store!

CANAAN FAIR TRADE MAFTOUL (COUSCOUS)

This couscous is a favorite of mine, as its pearls are much larger, giving it real texture yet remaining light and fluffy. When I lift the lid off the pot, I breathe in deeply. I feel the warm Middle Eastern sun, smell the fresh organic farm air, imagine the ancient olive groves, and taste the Mediterranean Sea. My favorite way to eat it is as a side salad, mixed with fresh parsley, tomatoes and lemon dressing, making a fresh-tasting and healthy dish, packed full of protein. Couscous is made from wheat that is boiled, sun-dried and rolled – and Canaan’s couscous is extra-special because it is made by a women-owned cooperative in Palestine. – STUART
canaanusa.com

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DIASPORA CO. TURMERIC

Turmeric rice is one of my favorite pairings with a homemade Indian meal, and this organic turmeric takes the dish to the next level – not only does it impart the trademark yellow color, it perfumes my kitchen with its fresh, earthy yet floral smell. While the turmeric is amazing and the packaging is cute, what first drew me in is their mission: a queer, woman-of- color-owned business “here to put money, equity and power in the hands of Indian farmers, and to disrupt and decolonize a colonial, outdated commodity spice trading system that profits only the trader.” – ANNA
diasporaco.com

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DIVINE’S DARK CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT TRUFFLE

Divine Chocolate’s label stands out on the shelf and stops me in my tracks. The sophistication of the packaging design matches the sophistication of the flavor of their fair trade chocolate. My favorite is their Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Truffle, suitable for vegans, so I can show my compassion for animals and farmers at the same time! Moreover, Divine Chocolate is co-owned by the 85,000 farmer members of Kuapa Kokoo, the cooperative in Ghana that supplies the cocoa for each bar they make. As owners, they get a share in the profits, a say in the company, and a voice in the global marketplace. The label emphasizes the organizing power of women cocoa farmers. It reads: “Hear our voice!” Well, I’m listening! – FLETCHER
shop.divinechocolateusa.com

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EQUAL EXCHANGE DRIED MANGOES

These delicious organic mangoes are grown by farmer cooperatives in Burkina Faso, and processed in a facility run almost entirely by women. This project is such a good example of how fair trade supports producers doing more processing activities— and earning more money—in their communities. Naturally sweet but with a touch of tartness, they are so easy to eat—one of my favorite hiking snacks or a nice afternoon treat. – KERSTIN
shop.equalexchange.coop

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TRIBE ALIVE FOLDOVER CLUTCH

I love that this clutch is so versatile: it can be worn as a bag, or the strap can be removed and then can be carried as a clutch. The patterns are also versatile and can be swapped around, making this a multi-use product. And, even more importantly, Tribe Alive is women-owned, women-designed and women-made by fair trade artisan projects around the world. This clutch was made by a foundation working with Mayan women in the highlands of Guatemala who focus on traditional backstrap weaving that provides artisan training and capacity building as well as scholarships for the weavers’ children. – DANA
tribealive.com

Download the Full Article [.pdf]

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