The PREDA Mango project

PREDA began work-helping youth and abused child in the city slums. Many were children who were forced as slaves into prostitution. Others were tortured and imprisoned. Young people and street children are shot by execution squads that appeal to have government approval to clear the streets of street children. PREDA has many projects and campaign to rescue and give a new life to these children.
But we are doing more also we are trying to reduce the poverty in the rural villages where the families cannot get a fear price for what they grow and they migrate to the cities and then there is more suffering.

The mango project is helping farmers to stay in their villages on the land and keep their family together. The family is the most important and since PREDA began to offer higher prices and interest free advance payment to farmers for mango fruit many families have prospered and the children go to school and are healthy.
We help and advise and encourage the farmers not to use pesticides to spray on the mango trees or the fruits. They are encouraged to put paper bags around the baby fruit and it will grow big in the bag safe from insects. The big mango tree is then seen with thousands of paper bags hanging from it. (Photo)

The problem facing the farmers in the past was that a few big family businesses dominated the business and had a price fixing cartel. They offered a low price and if the farmer refused to sell at the low price his fruit would not be bought and would rot.

Also the buying monopoly, (cartel) only gave a price for the best quality fruits .They offered nothing for the smaller fruit. But PREDA buys every piece of mango fruit the farmer can grow big or small, ugly or not. 

This is because PREDA makes dried mangos and mango puree for juice.. We do not need beautiful looking fruit for export. So this is a big help to farmers all over the Philippines. We offer a higher price and so al the other buyers have to compete and off higher too.

We cannot make this good project work without the help of a honest and ethical fruit processing company. It is impossible for small charity like PREDA to become a processor .we have to give our skills and energy to saving the farmers and the children.

The company Profood, is an ethical and very honest company that works with PREDA. to help the poor farmers. They pay a fair price for the mangos they use they are experts in dried mangos and mango puree from which juice is made. They have the high standards of hygiene and can dry the mango and make puree without using any chemicals. They can satisfy all the strict import requirements of the E.U.
Profood is a family business run by a Christian Family and they pay just wages to all the regular workers and they employ hundreds of students during the holiday season. So many young people can continue their education. They too pay the higher price for the mangos like PREDA to the farmers for their trading; Because of this all other buyers have to pay a higher price to get a supply of mangos. 

Fair Trade cannot continue without cooperating with the mainstream or commercial world. The banks we use to do our Fair Trade Business are not Fair Trade banks. The trucking and shipping lines we use to ship the products from our partners are not Fair Trade companies. The companies that print our labels or make the bottles for our products are not Fair trade companies. This does not make them bad companies or exploiters Pro-food is a good professional company that helps the farmers and PREDA and bring justice and social benefits to the poor and to reduce poverty and human exploitation.

We cannot condemn any other company because they are not like us and doing the special work of Fair Trade. . We ourselves are far from perfect we cannot demand perfection in every company 

IN FAIR TRADE WE TRY OUR BEST TO GIVE A GOOD EXAMPLE OF TRADING AND SHOW COMPASSION AND CONCERN FOR THE POOR AND DO AL WE CAN TO HELP THE POOR AND THE EXPLOITED. 

That is our main work. We invite all business to be Fair Traders, ethical and responsible and never to exploit others. We in Fair trade just try harder to give good example and bring justice in the trading world to reduce poverty and exploitation everywhere. Fair Trade cannot exist without the cooperation and expertise of ethical commercial companies. With them we are trying to make this a better and safer world for the poor and the children who are neglected and abused. You can make it better by helping PREDA. Fine.

Father Shay Cullen
PREDA director.