My friend Carmen runs the Fair Trade Federation. Although I can’t attend this year (new team member on the way), she asked me to let you know their annual conference is sure to be a worthwhile event.

FTF is inviting interested retailers, wholesalers, and friends to the 2007 conference - Changing Hands: The Work of Fair Trade - in Washington, DC from June 1-3. Please allow me to encourage you to go for the discussions about the future of fair trade and the practical seminars.  
 
On that Sunday, an exhibition of fair trade products will be open to the public on American University’s campus. For more information, hit their site, call 202-636-3547, or drop them an email.

The FLO writes a Producer Profile for each new organization that they certify to be Fair Trade. This is the one for Talon, our manufacturer in Pakistan.

It was written in June 2006, the summer before we launched Fair Trade Sports. The company noted in the profile called FairDeal Trading is my friend, business partner, and personal “professor”, Dr. Martin Kunz in London.

Although I don’t agree with everything in the FLO document - child labor has definitely NOT been “virtually eliminated” from this industry - it’s still a good document overall on the positive programs happening at Talon, including their medical program - a first in the sporting goods industry in Pakistan.
You can learn more about the benefits of purchasing Fair Trade soccer balls on Talon’s website.

Next time you grab for your yellow pages to look for a business, consider instead reaching for a copy of the National Green Pages.

It is the nation’s only directory of screened and approved green businesses, produced by Coop America.

These are the same folks who wrote an article on us when we first began to build Fair Trade Sports. I’ve found the Green Pages to be a fairly useful tool as a consumer.

There is a wonderful site called SustainLane which makes it easy for consumers to “go green”.

It’s a community-powered directory of green products, businesses, and user reviews.

I read about SustainLane recently in LOHAS Journal, and serendipitously my friend Sami at The Change pinged me today.

He suggested we ask our consumers to pop over to write a review on our company or products. If you are so inclined, you can do so here:

Review Fair Trade Sports the company

Review a product of Fair Trade Sports

Thanks for your help. Enjoy their site and our Spring sunshine!

In celebration of Earth Day (April 22), I’m pleased to announce all Fair Trade Sports balls are now being equipped with certified latex by the Forest Stewardship Council.

FSC certification is the same eco-label you see on other forest products at Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Kinko’s. Products bearing the FSC logo guarantee that the product (in our case, latex) came from a certified well-managed forest.

As we discussed earlier, the air bladders inside each of our sports balls - such as our fairly traded rugby ball - are made of latex. This latex now comes from our rubber tree forest in India which has been certified both FSC and Fair Trade.

I hope you are able to enjoy Earth Day outside with family and friends!

As we mentioned earlier, the International Labor Rights Fund held a contest for students over the Easter | Passover holiday to speak out against child labor in the cocoa industry through essays and art.

The winners received a fairly traded youth soccer ball.

Congratulations to the winning students, and thank you to everyone who entered!

First prize: Third to Fifth Grade
Be Concerned by Naomi Smith

Runners Up:

• Child Labor in the Chocolate Industry by Elizabeth Marie Pautsch
• Why Buy the Chocolate of Slavery? by Emily Winn

First prize: Sixth to Eighth Grade
Cool to be Cruel? by Olivia Coraggio

Runners Up:

• Save the Kids! by Emanuelle Rodrigues
• No Child Labor! by Marirose Brown

First Prize: High School
Youth and Fair Trade Chocolate by Ethan Miller

Runners Up:

• Equity and Fair Trade by Mariko Powers
• Not So Sweet by Caroline Fay

Art Winners: Pete Kostopanagiotis, Ariel Ore, Juliam Rodriguez, Devin Williams

Yesterday I had the honor of being a judge at Seattle Pacific University’s first ever Social Venture Plan Competition.
The winning team was a dynamic group called Care for Kids, led by a charismatic young man named Karman Tandon. This guy’s level of salesmanship was outstanding.

His passion for helping children in Zambia and Uganda was obvious, as was his quick intellect and engaging personality. I would hire Karman as a representative for Fair Trade Sports in a New York second to sell our fairly traded sports balls. He reminded me of several students I know in United Students for Fair Trade (USFT).

And Karman is bright enough to surround himself with a group of co-founders and advisers to round out their overall team.

My friends who are venture capitalists regularly comment that they invest in the person, not the project. In their eyes, the initial project may morph over time (usually does), but if the person is a serious dynamo, the project will eventually succeed (and make the VC a boatload of cash).

It’s encouraging to see emerging leadership within the current generation of college and high school students focusing their skills on issues such as children’s health care in Africa. If you have the opportunity to help with a social venture plan competition at a nearby university, I’d encourage you to say Yes.

The Fair Trade Resource Network (FTRN) raises consumer awareness about improving people’s lives through Fair Trade alternatives. They just launched a special offer as part of World Fair Trade Day, May 12, 2007.
When you contribute $100 or more to FTRN, we’ll give you a Fair Trade Sports soccer ball to organize your own Fair Trade soccer game on World Fair Trade Day.

By the way, any contribution to FTRN before May 12 will enter you into a raffle to receive one of our fairly traded soccer balls.

Since I came from the world of Fair Trade coffee, alot of folks ask me if I have that little black and white mark on my sports balls from Transfair USA.

The short answer is “not yet” as Transfair USA does not yet certify anything other than agricultural commodities, such as bananas and tea.

All our fairly traded sports balls, including youth soccer balls, volleyballs, and much more are instead certified by Transfair USA’s parent organization, the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO).

FLO is the umbrella organization to which all country-specific Fair Trade labeling initiatives (like Transfair USA) report. I hope to have Transfair USA join our team in coming years and put their mark on sports balls as a category.

Speaking of Transfair USA, to celebrate World Fair Trade Day (May 12, 2007), they just launched a creative art contest for teachers and students grades 3-12.

The teacher submitting the most entries by May 15 will win one of our fairly traded soccer balls to share with their class. Imagine…a tangible way to remind your students how Fair Trade benefits children in other countries that is also fun on the playground! Learn more.

From our friends at Oxfam America comes this wonderful teaching tool to help both the young and old learn about the principals behind Fair Trade in a fun and memorable manner.

What a great educational game to use with a fairly traded soccer ball to demonstrate how global trade rules put some countries at a disadvantage!

Speaking of education, Andy Kerckhoff is one of my closest friends and a brilliant teacher in St. Louis. He regularly challenges his students to think well beyond their comfort zones and consider the enormous positive impact they can have in our world.

Here’s what his seventh graders came up with yesterday when presented with the challenge of how they could personally help the people of Africa…