by Andy Lambert, Peace Coffee Outreach and Donations Coordinator

During the third weekend in February, I had the privilege of attending the 3rd annual United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) International Convergence in Denver, CO. Over 300 youth organizers, students, allies and producers converged on the University of Denver, campus for an amazingly powerful weekend of collaboration, critical thinking, and relationship building. The convergence offered participants inspirational and educational workshops, keynote speakers, and action planning breakouts. The majority of the attendees were college aged young men and women from around the world. There were also many farmers representing their respective coops from places such as Thailand, Mexico, Costa Rica, and various countries in Africa.

On the first day of the convergence, I had the pleasure of having lunch with four young women from Seoul, S. Korea who had heard about the concept of fair trade earlier this year in a Women’s Studies class. They said that consumer knowledge and demand for fairly traded goods in Korea is basically non-existent. Their purpose and intent of attending the USFT convergence was to discover ways that they can start growing demand and awareness for fairly traded goods on their campus in Seoul. I told these four young women that they are pioneers of the future fair trade movement in Seoul and that they should be proud of themselves for what they are hoping to accomplish.

The next day I shared a lunch table with a representative from the Ugandan coffee cooperative called the Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative. His name is Seth and he does administrative tasks for the cooperative. He is not actually a farmer but a teacher and an organizer at a school in the village where the office of the coop is located. This cooperative consists of members from the local Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities. Their work is an incredible example of people from different faiths working together to promote peace, tolerance and economic justice. Their coffee is appropriately named “Delicious Peace”. 

On the final day of the convergence, two rice farmers from Thailand performed a Thai tradition called a “string tying ceremony”. After saying a beautiful prayer, they presented the audience with white strings that we took and tied on our neighbor’s wrist. For us, the strings symbolized everything that fair trade is about and the act of tying the strings symbolized the solidarity that we created with our neighbors over the weekend.

The convergence would not have been as wonderful as it was without the presence of all of our international friends. The perspective on fair trade that they brought to the table created a holistic dialog throughout the course of the convergence, a dialog that had a profound impact on everyone who attended. Peace Coffee is proud to support the USFT Convergence because it brings people together from around the world in the name of learning, sharing and advancing the fair trade movement. 

For more information about United Students for Fair Trade or the 2007 convergence, please visit www.usft.org.

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