While kids in America will be happily running the streets Friday night, hitting up neighbors for candy, a few will be instead handing their neighbors a piece of fair trade chocolate and a card detailing some of the abusive practices of the chocolate industry. It's a "reverse trick or treating" program through Global Exhange.
According to this post on Chow, the card reads, in part, “Like Halloween, chocolate should be a source of joy for all children, including those in countries where cocoa is grown. Unfortunately, that is not the case today. Despite six years of promises from major chocolate manufacturers little has been done to tackle the documented problem of forced child labor on many farms that supply their cocoa. Moreover, low cocoa prices have left cocoa farmers in poverty year after year.”
I’ll admit this right now –I haven’t gone all fair trade with my chocolate purchases, and we’ll probably be handing out regular old chocolate this year. But I like this idea – it’s a way to educate kids a little bit about global trade and where their treats come from. More importantly, it’s a way to bring attention to the issue of fair trade without being Debbie Downer and offers some real, clear ways to make a difference. Too often we’re told of these horrible injustices in the world but not told any way that we can possibly help. And for me, that just makes me want to hide under the bed. But “here’s some chocolate and here’s a simple way to make life better for the kids that harvested it?” That’s pretty cool.
