Fair trade conference in the windy city

[Guest guest]

Global Exchange's ally, United Students for Fair Trade, is holding their

National Convergence in Chicago February 18-21. I encourage all students and

supporters to join us at the convergence. Valerie Orth (Global Exchange) and

Liana Foxvog (SweatFree Communities) will be facilitating a workshop on how

to make your community a fair trade community. Please see

www.usft.org/convergence/ and below for more information. Registration ends

very soon, so sign up today!

 

Sincerely,

Global Exchange Fair Trade Campaigns

----

United Students for Fair Trade

2005 National Convergence ~ Chicago, IL

 

Educate. Activate. Empower.

 

Fair Trade Face to Face

 

³I used to think that the Fair Trade struggle was just our own...but it

fills me with joy to realize that there are other people struggling for

Fair Trade around the world.²

 

~Alfredo Rayo

Student Leader, Cooperativa Organica, La Corona, Nicaragua

 

* USFT's 2005 national convergence, from February 18-21, in Chicago*

will both reflect on the accomplishments of the past year's organizing,

and continue to advance USFT's mission to educate, activate, and empower

student organizers. As the philosopher Martin Buber wrote in I and Thou,

³everything is meeting.² 'Convergence' means diverse forces coming

together: Foremost, the Chicago convergence will weave together

essential relationships that serve as the foundation for today's student

Fair Trade movement.

 

The convergence offers an important opportunity to *exchange accounts of

victories and challenges with Producer Cooperatives*, creating a rare

space for understanding the transnational dimensions of the movement.

Several leaders from Fair Trade cooperatives, as well as student leaders

from within the cooperative movement, will join us to share their

experiences and explore questions about North-South power relationships

and solidarity between landless workers and small farmers. This and many

other activities will continue to inform and motivate a new generation

of student leadership in the Fair Trade movement, that is committed and

connected.

 

* We will share our creativity and experience*, translating it into

action across the nation. National conferences often serve as the high

point of a student organization's annual activities. At the Convergence

student activists will connect with their USFT Regional Organizers that

have emerged out of the 2004 Convergence and the Nicaragua Summer

Leadership Summit, to harmonize and map their collective vision for

regional campaigns being hashed out this year. *While the convergence

will likely be the largest meeting of the year exclusively devoted to

Fair Trade in the United States, and a significant contribution to the

greater Fair Trade movement, it is foremost a rallying point that will

spark coordinated student activism throughout the important Spring term,

and beyond.*

 

* The Convergence is a forum for student activists to share skills,

experiences, passions, and ideas.* We will focus on increasing and

sustaining the leverage of student groups working on Fair Trade, while

exploring new linkages to other movements that share key values and

constituencies with Fair Trade. Through an interactive workshop-based

format‹from Fair Trade 101, to in-depth producer-led workshops on Fair

Trade in the field, to skill building sessions led by experienced

student Fair Trade organizers‹students will deepen their understanding

of the Fair Trade movement, and leave empowered to take action on their

campuses and in their communities.

 

³Each relation is not just a posture or attitude, but a mode of

existence... Fair Trade is a way of reclaiming our humanity and those

who are less fortunate.²

 

~Yann Martel, author of The Life of Pi

 

If you are interested in supporting USFT's efforts at the Convergence,

please contact our Convergence Fundraising Coordinator: Isaac

Grody-Patinkin, at 917-435-1398, or via e-mail at Isaac.

 

If you would like to attend and/or set up a table at the Convergence,

please contact our Convergence Outreach Coordinator: Christina Synowiec,

at 502-419-3389, or via e-mail at Synowics

or Midwest Coordinator/Convergence Organizer: Melanie Benesh, at

402-215-3159, or via e-mail at mbenesh411.

 

See you there!

 

 

--

Global Exchange Fair Trade & Economic Rights Campaigns

www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade

2017 Mission Street #303, San Francisco, CA 94110

 

 

Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall

How can you refuse it?

Let fury have the hour, anger can be power

D'you know that you can use it?