October is the official Fair Trade month - and our team is working madly to get our initial inventory of sports balls here in time for it - but did you know that October also holds a significant event from the Millienium Campaign that needs your participation?

Our friend Amil from the United Nations Millennium Campaign in NY writes: 

On Oct 15/16 we’re asking the world to Stand Up Against Poverty and for the MDGs.  We need everyone to be part of this movement to break the world record for the most number of people to stand up for a given cause.  Would appreciate if you could let everyone involved with FTS know about the event; i’m enclosing a brochure for more background information.

Best, Amil

Here’s the event brochure. See you at the Seattle event!

We like our one-word tagline - Respect - and we’re keeping it, but more taglines can only make life better, right?

Give us your thoughts on additional taglines for Fair Trade Sports. Here’s the ones submitted thus far (even sport specific ones!). The last one is my favorite.

• Fair Trade Sports: More money for children, less money for TV ads.
• Fair Trade Sports: Good for you, good for the future.
  
• Respect: More than a great old skool song.
  
• Fair Trade Sports: My sport. My passion. My life.
• Fair Trade Rugby: Respect the Ruck.
• Fair Trade Sports: Give blood. Play rugby.
  
• Fair Trade Soccer: Hooligans showing due Respect.
• Respect: Fair Trade Soccer Mom.
• Fair Trade Sports: The Beautiful Game.
  
• Fair Trade Volleyball: Bump. Set. Spike. Repeat.
• Respect: Eat. Sleep. Play volleyball.
• Fair Trade Football: More than just a fantasy.
  
• Fair Trade Sports: Just a flesh wound!

Pakistan supplies around 70% of the world’s soccer balls, with an estimated 44,000 men and women stitchers in the Sialkot region of Pakistan involved in the production of 35 million soccer balls every year. The industry has been criticized for low pay, poor working conditions and the widespread illegal employment of children who are forced into work because adult wages are often too low to support a family. International campaigns in the 1990s saw some success with gradually moving production away from home-based stitchers to independently monitored stitching centers and providing constructive alternatives for children such as basic education and skills training. However, low pay and a lack of social benefits remain issues for workers in the industry.

Factory workers produce the internal bladders and also laminate, cut and print the 32 panels that make up each soccer ball. The sets are then delivered to dozens of small stitching centers in villages around Sialkot. The balls are stitched together then returned to the factory for washing, quality control and packing. The stitching centers employ up to 15 workers who stitch a maximum of three balls a day, each one requiring around 650 stitches. The centers are operated by the main factories or by subcontractors and are segregated by gender to comply with religious and cultural values.

Our manufacturer, Talon Sports, is a large-scale producer employing around 2,500 factory workers and contract stitchers. Production is split 50/50 between sports clothing and sports balls - mainly soccer balls but also rugby balls, volleyballs, rugby balls, and more - that are assembled at more than 50 stitching centers. Talon Sports is the leading manufacturer producing sports balls that are certified to be Fair Trade and thus free from child-labor.

In the changer this week:

• Rolling Stones
  
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• Echo and the Bunnymen
  
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• ApacificModel
  
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• Astrud Gilberto
  
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• Iggy Pop