OVERCOMING POVERTY THROUGH FAIR TRADE

OVERCOMING POVERTY THROUGH
FAIR TRADE

Father Shay Cullen, PREDA Foundation, Inc.
July 17, 1998

What could be more uplifting and encouraging than to witness poor families who had known nothing but poverty and hardships, lifting themselves to a life of decency and dignity through their own hard work? Helping people to help themselves overcome hunger and hardship has been the proud history of the Fair Trade movement . Gepa and the Preda Fair Trade Products have been partners working for many years to bring together the small producer groups and cooperatives in the developing world and linking them with the thousands of volunteers and Third World shop managers who sell the products of these struggling artisans and farmers .

Juanita Fortes is a sixty-five year old grandmother who lives in a small bamboo house near Olongapo City in the Philippines. Juanita, now old and wrinkled with flowing white hair and a ready smile kept her family from the pain of hunger and poverty and brought them prosperity today. Her grandchild don't ever have to be child laborer and instead enjoy their childhood and get a good education. These once unattainable rights are now possible through her little home-based industry making small rattan and buri stools, nesting tables and book cases. Preda and Gepa helped Juanita by finding customers fo her family's products at good prices.

They used to make a living from cultivating a patch of rice land that is owned by a rich landlord with whom they had to share almost half of their earnings. When the volcano, Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, their field was covered with eight to ten inches of ash and sand that drifted out of the sky during the massive explosions from the heart of the mountain. They were almost ruined and driven to the edge of despair. But then, Juanita turned to Preda and Gepa to help them develop their little industry manufacturing these native furniture products. It was their economic salvation. They were able to turn their energies and skill to expanding their enterprise making it into a thriving home industry that provided a steady income.

Everyone in Juanita's family worked in small workshop attached to their little home. They grew vegetables, raised chickens and made furniture. It's a story that has been repeated in many villages and towns around the Philippines where Fair Trade has provided families with orders from satisfied and supportive customers.

We have all seen the horrific evidence on television of famines and unbearable slums in developing countries. These images of human suffering haunt us. Yet for many, it has been prevented and cured through the work of human development organizations like Preda working with partners like Gepa and the Third World shops. The continuing poverty that we are trying to alleviate and end are caused by social injustice and exploitation of the worst kind.

In parts of the Philippines where Preda is active, farmers are often exploited by unscrupulous merchants, loan sharks and cartels. The support given by Preda and the sales of dried mangoes and other dried tropical fruits though the Third World shops in Europe has made it possible for small cooperatives to grow and prosper.

This is being done by providing low cost loans, technical advice to increase production, and helping the farmers get the best prices for their produce. The amazing sales of dried mangoes for example has contributed to creating a big demand for fresh mangoes in the Philippines.

Poor farmers who now benefit for the Preda development program and the markets provided through the Third World Shops were once unable to produce their own harvest of mangoes and sold their future harvests for a low price to unethical buying agents and exporters. These people made massive profits leaving the farmers impoverished and their children uneducated and malnourished. Now, through the cooperative supported by Preda, they have broken free from the loan sharks and the cartels and are prospering and their mangoes are processed into healthy food.

One farmer, Alberto Zamora, before there was a cooperative and Fair Trade, had to leave his hillside plot where he had five mango trees because he could not earn enough to feed his family. His vegetables and pineapples growing on the steep hillside were not enough to sustain his five children. He could not afford to bring his trees into production and so he migrated to the city slums where he tried to make small fashion accessories like hair clips, bangles and necklaces out of coconut wood and paper matche. Here, he and his family was exploited by the rich exporters of fashion accessories who paid a pittance for his work. But when Preda began to buy directly from him and give him new designs that were saleable, he could feed his family and his children began to go to school. But the orders for these products were to getting less when I met him and he was planning to go back to his mango trees where there was now a cooperative to help him get his trees into production and he could have a better life.

These are just a few examples that help show what it means to have economic help and good earning for hard work. If we are going to overcome poverty in this world we have to change the unjust economic structures that are controlled by small groups of elite merchants and politicians. That too is the work of Preda and the Fair Trade movement and it is that work together with selling the products of the poor of fair prices that can help them end their poverty.

PREDA Fairtrade Products
Upper Kalaklan, Olongapo City, Philippines
Tel: +63 47 2239629 Fax: +63 47 2239628

Tel: +63 47 2239629 Fax: +63 47 2239628