News Briefs: June 8, 2006
Invest in fair-trade
Canadian Lutheran World Relief’s Alternative Trade Program (ATO) is changing the lives of third world artisans—one purchase at a time!
Since the introduction of fair-trade coffee in the spring of 2005, ATO has seen record increases in coffee sales with our three popular varieties: Café Pangoa, Café La Paz, Café San Miguel. ATO launched its own fair-trade coffee label in the spring of 2006 and to date we have 103 Lutheran churches across Canada purchasing fair-trade coffee through alternative trade.
Due to this huge demand for fairly traded consumables, ATO is excited to offer FAIR-TRADE TEA from Sri Lanka and FAIR-TRADE COCOA/CHOCOLATE from the Caribbean and Latin America!
Our inventory will include a selection of assorted teas such as green tea, chai tea, earl grey tea, ceylon tea, and lemon and honey tea. We will carry a selection of assorted chocolate bars (milk, dark and white), chocolate covered coffee beans, hot chocolate and cocoa. For more information please call 1.800.661.2597 and ask for ATO.
Fair-trade certification guarantees that:
- Third world producers are paid a fair price.
- Farmers are empowered to have an informed say in the decisions that affect them.
- Health, education, and other public services are developed.
- Environmentally-friendly farming practices are used.
- Consumers are given information on producers, production methods and trading relationships.
Most of all…it gives people dignity, a sense of control over their own lives, and hope for a better future!
—CLWR News Service and ATO
Indonesia update
Already shaken from an earthquake last month and fearing a second emergency, nearly 23,000 people have been evacuated from Indonesia’s Mount Merapi since the volcano alert level was raised to its highest level three weeks ago. Merapi is situated about 30km north of Yogyakarta, the main city in the quake zone, and was being considered as part of the overall emergency response to the quake.
Officials have revised the death toll from the May 27 quake on the island of Java slightly upwards to 5,855, while the number of people left homeless has soared to over 400,000. Campaigns to vaccinate more than a million Indonesians against measles and tetanus have been launched.
CLWR, as a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT), issued an appeal on behalf of ACT members in the area and will channel funds received for the Indonesia earthquake to those ACT partners, who have excellent delivery mechanisms already in place to bring the needed relief and aid to victims.
—with reports from CLWR News Service, AlertNet and Associated Press
Leaders committed to peaceful change
Indigenous people in Bolivia are determined to claim their rights as citizens, and community groups that CLWR supports are committed to peaceful means to achieve this.
Approximately 60 percent of Bolivia’s population is indigenous and, until the mid-1990s, they were essentially a people without a voice. “They were considered people of second class,” explains Daniel Mojica, who works for CLWR in the Chiquitano indigenous communities in Bolivia’s lowlands.
In 1994, the Bolivian constitution was changed and the country’s indigenous people were finally recognized. “From then on the indigenous people woke up.”
In the years since, indigenous groups have organized massive marches to La Paz, the country’s seat of power (although Sucre is the constitutional capital). Some of these marches took three months. The indigenous groups came with “peaceful, positive propositions,” says Mojica.
“The lowlanders want peaceful change, to work within the democratic system,” he said, adding that there are some indigenous groups elsewhere in the country that want more aggressive change. The lowland indigenous groups have provided an important moderating influence in the indigenous movement, he says.
CLWR has been involved in leadership training, literacy initiatives, gender awareness training, legal support, agriculture improvement projects, and other programs with the Chiquitano people over the years. There continues to be a deep thirst for both leadership and conflict resolution training, says Jaime Bravo, former CLWR representative in Bolivia.
Why conflict resolution training? “Because people here in Bolivia have lived with violence for so many years,” he said. They want something better.
The commitment to peaceful ways of effecting change is a constant theme in conversations with indigenous leaders.
“I have assumed a conciliatory position, to find a peaceful way to solve our differences,” says Cesar Rivero, an indigenous leader who was elected mayor of San Javier in 2004. He is referring to relations with the powerful landowners who are accustomed to wielding the power in the municipality. “It is my goal to open the door to everybody. My commitment is to work with everybody.”
Justo Seoane, the mayor of neighbouring Concepcion, agrees. He is also a graduate of the leadership program. “We are not looking for revenge,” he says. “We want to build bridges.” Both have formed alliances with non-indigenous council members so they can govern more effectively.
Carlos Cuasace is president of OICH, one of the community groups that CLWR works with in the lowlands. He is an indigenous leader and has been threatened many times by members of political parties and landowners afraid of losing their power to indigenous people.
What gives him strength is that he has lived in indigenous communities his whole life and has experienced the suffering. “I have lived there. I have suffered. That has given me courage,” he said. “My heart is full of principle.”
The suffering is also why he is committed to peace, he says. “I am committed to peaceful struggle. The only thing we [the indigenous people] are asking for is what we are entitled to by law and human rights.”
—CLWR News Service
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