I was just reading about World Fair Trade Day, happens on the second Saturday in May, around the world for the last six years, and thought it was worth passing on what I found out. Didn’t know much about Fair Trade until I started reading up on the events that happened this year on May 12th.

Fair Trade is a movement that connects us to the people who grow our food, make our clothes, and basically labor on our behalf so we don’t have to Hopefully changing the way we think about the things we buy, Fair Trade promotes good working conditions and encourages fair wages. Fair Trade also ensures that profit is not maximized at the expense of marginalized people. Some Fair Trade products, like coffee and chocolate, are Fair Trade Certified (tm) and carry a label or "seal” that conscientious consumers can look for. There are many countries in the world that practice Fair Trade, just to name a few: Nepal, Kenya, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Japan, India, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Cambodia

By practicing Fair Trade we can hope to change the economic and social structure of the world. Marginalized people are empowered to escape poverty allowing them to send their children to school. With an education the children can live a healthier fuller life than their parents did. Of the 246 million children classified as child laborers in 2004, 73 million of them were less than 10 years old; this is unacceptable to the organizers of World Fair Trade Day and others (including me!)

World Fair Trade events are organized by International Fair Trade Associations based in 70 countries. There are many different types of events ranging from presentations, concerts, fashion shows, parades, and much more. This all started, six years ago, as a European movement of over 2,000 World Shops to celebrate on the same day. Japan and the United States soon joined in. Safia Minney is the founder of World Fair Trade Day and is also the founder of People Tree.

This year’s theme for world events was “Kids Need Fair Trade”. It has been recognized that Governmental programs all around the world that sound promising ("out of work into school" "stop child labor" "action plan to eliminate child labor" "school is the best workplace") are all ineffective if the root cause of child labor is not tackled: poverty. With this in mind the very apropos theme was brought to light.

Here are just a few of the events that occurred around the world: Cambodia celebrated its first ever World Fair Trade Day, marking the occasion with the presentation of a giant 27metre-long 'Kroma' (Cambodian scarf), created from 1-metre-square pieces of fabric contributed by over 40 handicraft, fashion and food enterprises around Cambodia. Pekerti Foundation, Indonesia held two programs, firstly, Fair Trade socialization for students in May 2007. The theme of this program is “Ceria Bersama fair Trade (cheerful with fair trade). The second activity was a tree planting ceremony held at “Kampung Pekerti’, land newly purchased by a group of Pekerti’s staff”. The 12,822 m2 of land has been chosen to become a pilot tree plantation project for the supply of raw material used for craft. In Seoul, Korea the day Beautiful Store held a street exhibition of Fair Trade posters, which depicted the lives of Fair Trade producers in Nepal. People were free to roam through the exhibition and were treated to a Fair Trade coffee tasting. Kenya invited all the artists to display their products as they did last year. It was an exhibition of different products from the people from the slums, but especially in Korogocho. It was also a day of sports where different people from different ethnic group participated.

There are many web sites that address both Fair Trade and World Fair Trade Day. Check them out and let me know what you think about the message.