by Andy Lambert

The Fair Trade movement owes a lot to the thousands of high school and college students all over the world who commit hours and hours of their time outside of the classroom to educate their peers about fair trade. Locally, the Fair Trade Task Force at the College of St. Catherine (St. Kate’s) deserves major kudos for the hard work that they did on their campus in November to educate their peers about fair trade. 

The Fair Trade Task Force is a sub-committee of the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) at St. Kate’s. There are currently nine college campuses in Minnesota that have MPIRG student groups. For 34 years, MPIRG has been a catalyst for progressive change in Minnesota. In 1973, MPIRG, local unions, and the state AFL-CIO conducted a joint survey that resulted in a ban on the use of asbestos in new building construction (www.mpirg.org). Their work for progressive social change has not stopped there.

Currently, MPIRG is in the second year of a two-year campaign to educate college students about the realities of global free trade, and the advantages of the alternative trade model, fair trade. In March of 2005, MPIRG released a survey entitled, “Student Knowledge and Support of Fair Trade”. The document can be downloaded from the organization’s web site. 

Last month, many students at St. Kate’s participated in a handful of fair trade events scheduled the week before Thanksgiving. The week started off with a fair trade teach-in that hosted presentations by: Sr. Amata Miller of St. Kate's, Erick Esse of the Local Fair Trade Network, Patricia Jurewicz from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Andy Lambert from Peace Coffee. The following day offered a fair trade coffee tasting in the afternoon, and an evening showing of a 2004 documentary entitled, “Darwin’s Nightmare”. To wrap up the week’s event schedule, representatives from seven individual fair trade businesses in the Twin Cities brought their goods to sell at a fair trade bazaar. It is important to remember that all of these events were coordinated, promoted and staffed by the student volunteers of the St. Kate’s Fair Trade Task Force (all of whom are full-time students!). Hats off to all for their hard work!

The student movement supporting fair trade is fostered by these kinds of well organized events and teach-ins. The 3rd annual United Students for Fair Trade Convergence is coming up this February 2006 and is probably the most inspirational and educational student-organized event focused on promoting fair trade on college campuses. If you are interested in attending, please visit www.usft.org for more information about the convergence. Peace Coffee has been a strong supporter of this event since its inception and we’re looking forward to helping create another great convergence in 2006. 

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