I've never had such fun that included so little sleep and losing my voice. I believe that is my new litmus test for how successful a show is.

Our team had a wonderful time seeing old friends from Guayaki and Grounds for Change, making new friends at Better World Books (Go Irish!) and ChicoBag, while being fueled by massive amounts of acai smoothies from Sambazon.

We did a fair number of interviews with journalists regarding our world's-first eco-certified sports balls. Look for the coverage over the next week or so. It's fun to see a journalist's eyes widen when you describe your product line; it's not often they get to see something really different, especially a completely new entry into the world of Fair Trade and green products.

And many thanks to Coop America's Chip Py the photo guy, for the use of this shot.

Join Fair Trade Sports for the first ever Seattle Green Festival this weekend (April 12-13) at the Convention Center downtown!

Green Fest shows off the latest in sweatshop-free clothing, organic beer and wine, recycled products, Fair Trade, vegetarian cuisine, renewable energy and more. It will be a weekend full of speakers, 300 business exhibitors, and even a clothing swap! With admission to Green Festival you will also be offered a FREE Co-op America membership.

I'll be speaking at these times and on these topics. If you are in town, stop by to heckle me. :)

Saturday, April 12, 1PM: Sweat-Free Seattle Campaign Join myself and Global Exchange’s Valerie Orth and Elizabeth Swager to discuss how your city or town can adopt laws that prohibit local institutions from purchasing goods made in sweatshops. Together, we can create a substantial market for goods made by workers who get paid a living wage, are treated with dignity and respect, and have a voice on the job.

Saturday, April 12, 5PM: Eco-Certified Fair Trade Sports Come hear how we can kick sweatshops off the playing fields of our schools and parks with eco-certified Fair Trade sports balls and uniforms.

Sunday, April 13, 2PM: Fully Committed Fair Trade Businesses What makes a business Fair Trade? Join me to hear how the Fair Trade Federation ensures local business practices have a positive impact on producers a world away.

Be sure to stop by the Fair Trade Sports booth to get more information about our products, sign up for this blog (as if you haven’t already), purchase FTS balls just in time for the sunny part of spring in Seattle, or just say hi.

For more information or to register, visit www.greenfestivals.org. We have a number of free guest passes; just ask for them under the Fair Trade Sports name when you enter the building. First come, first serve. Enjoy the show!

Waylon Lewis is a funny guy. Quite funny, in fact, but also a poignant speaker on current events. Take a glimpse into life in Boulder, Colorado in this short elephant magazine video clip of Waylon. Be sure to check out the rest of their video series as well.



Props to Mathew Gerson at eConscious Market for supplying Waylon with the Fair Trade soccer ball to pitch from the stage.

I recently wrote a piece about guerrilla marketing tactics (read: you have little to no budget to spend) that small businesses and nonprofit organizations can use to increase sales or expand the reach of their causes.

I've found guerrilla marketing for our Fair Trade soccer balls to be both fun and frustrating. Fun because I enjoy seeing Fair Trade Sports budget dollars go to our adult stitchers, rather than marketing items like huge celebrity advertising campaigns. But frustrating because relying on positive word of mouth as your primary advertising tool is an inexact science.

If that sounds interesting, check out the article on Green Guys Global. While you are there, be sure to jump over to their sister site Green Girls Global. Both sites are highly recommended.

Sameena Nyaz is 18 years old, single, and lives in a village called Chak Gillan, near Sialkot, the world capital of soccer ball production in Pakistan.

Her father runs the snack shop in the soccer ball stitching center 200 yards away, which was built by Talon Sports, our Fair Trade soccer ball supplier. Sameena goes there to stitch soccer balls, too. After home-based stitching stopped, the center became one of the first places where women could continue such work. As companies moved the work into big factory units in order to prevent child labor, they effectively locked out women who could not be away from home for the whole day.

Sameena is one of 11 siblings, seven sisters and four brothers. Two of the older ones also stitch balls. Stitching wages are low - only Fair Trade buyers like Fair Trade Sports pay enough to enable the three to provide their family with all the basic necessities.

Sameena never had the chance to attend school - instead, she has been contributing to the family income from early on, and has now been stitching for three years. The family has a small hut and a kitchen garden, where everyone helps out.

Recently Sameena had to have a thyroid operation - the bandage on her neck was still there. All costs were paid by the Talon Fair Trade Welfare Society - the health care program made possible by the Fair Trade premiums, a first for workers, which include Sameena and her family.

Warning: This is my blatant sales pitch for a hip new shoe company out on the East Coast. While I normally believe in controlling our consumerist tendencies, you really need a pair of these shoes!

If you still lace up a beat-up, worn-down, just-plain-falling-apart pair of classic Chuck Taylor sneakers, then I've got news for you.

Before you hand $50 over to a corporate machine brand like Nike (they bought the financially-ailing Converse in 2003), check out the ultimate ethical alternative from my friend Anne at www.autonomieproject.com...the new Ethletic brand (ethics + athletic = Ethletic!).

These kicks are Fair Trade and eco-friendly so your feet, social conscious and green lifestyle can now all get along!  Made with the same FSC-certified all natural and sustainable rubber that we use in our Fair Trade soccer balls, they are also moving to Fair Trade certified, organic cotton canvas and shoelaces in the coming months.

Ethletic shoes are made by adult workers - not children - in Fair Trade environments, which means the people who made your shoes are being paid a fair wage, have access to health care and micro credit loans. Each pair is stamped with the FSC logo on the sole so you can rest easy that your carbon footprint truly is green! (Sorry, bad joke, could not resist.)

So be ethical.  Buy Ethletic.

Kitman is 67 years old and still works a full-time job. Since he started working, he has been a rubber tapper on the Frocester Plantation in Sri Lanka.

By local standards, Kitman is a successful man. Each of his seven sons has found work in the capital of Colombo (two hours away by bus). The eldest son is in charge of a small business, two have become tailors, two work as drivers, and two are employed as shop assistants. One of his daughters is a teacher, while the other works as a rubber tapper on the same plantation as her father.

With their joint savings, Kitman has managed to improve the basic accommodations provided by the plantation to the extent that the structure of what once was called battery housing is hardly noticeable anymore. The house is currently being occupied by nine people: Kitman and his wife, three of their daughters-in-law and two grandchildren, as well as their daughters.

The house has one major drawback, however; there is no running water.

Water must be fetched from an open well that is 100 yards across the village road. According to the medical officer of the plantation, many people in the area suffer from dysentery and other water-borne diseases as a result of the lack of a safe water supply.

In an agreement with the plantation owners (the first Fair Trade deal in rubber), our group ordered rubber for our products (the inside air bladder of a Fair Trade soccer ball is made of latex, which comes from rubber) and paid a Fair Trade premium for it.

In line with Fair Trade criteria, the management and the workers established a Fair Trade Welfare Society and jointly decided how this money would be spent. One project will be the installation of a pump and a piping system, so that 20 households around the well will each get a tap in front of their unit. Kitman's house is one of them.

The other major Fair Trade project agreed upon is the restoration of a restroom for the workers at one latex collection station, which includes a canteen area to keep food safely and a unit with sanitary latrines, along with a place where workers (mostly women) can change into their working clothes.

Arguably, all of this should have been provided by plantation management, particularly since rubber is selling well right now with strong global demand. However, our purchases of rubber have led to an agreement that management will provide the funds to ensure that these projects will be completed, even though the initial Fair Trade premium is not enough to cover the costs.

For those on you in the Texas area, be sure to put the annual Fair Trade Federation conference on your calendars. This year it is in Austin on April 4-6.

FTF members and friends are invited to join us for vital conversations about the strategic future of FTF, great networking opportunities, and skill building workshops at the 2008 Conference. You can register here.

Members are invited to an all day strategic planning session on Friday, April 4. I'm looking forward to seeing friends from across the country again, like Jackie DeCarlo, the Fair Trade whirlwind from CRS (Catholic Relief Services). She's pictured here with her sticker-adorned laptop (we're honored to have our RESPECT sticker placed between Ani DiFranco and Peace Coffee).

On Saturday and Sunday, April 5-6, members and non-members are invited to attend special seminars and trainings on:

• branding
• financing
• marketing
• and other key areas

There will also be a Fair Trade Expo open to the public where you can see the latest Fair Trade products. Hope to see you there!

I was speaking with students at the University of Washington last week about this topic and realized I had not yet done a blog post summary on it. So here you go...

As suppliers of Fair Trade soccer balls, we've signed up to a pioneering initiative where soccer ball stitching is organized into small work units in the villages of Sialkot, Pakistan - with dedicated units for women, who - in an Islamic society - could not work in the same room as men.

As part of Fair Trade requirements for sports balls (PDF), the working conditions in these units (ventilation, lighting and access to safe drinking water) are being improved each year.

The key component of Fair Trade criteria, however, is that the workers in these centers receive a substantially increased wage for all soccer balls ordered under Fair Trade conditions. These wages are calculated - if it were applied for all their work - to meet the basic needs of a family, allowing the children to go to school instead of having to work.

Furthermore, a basic health care program is provided for all those involved in the production of Fair Trade sports balls - a first for this type of employment. And in order to reduce the workers' dependency on the ball-export production (which can be seasonal), micro-credit loans are offered to improve the village economy and to provide alternative or additional income opportunities to the workers.

To finance these changes, a Fair Trade premium is also placed on the price of each unit. And as with all other products that carry the Fair Trade certification, compliance with these criteria is subject to constant independent monitoring. The Fair Trade certification does indeed guarantee a better deal for all producers.

In the case of Fair Trade soccer balls, the price of every ball includes a premium that we pay (but not pass on to you the consumer), which contributes to the health care and micro-credit programs described above, the improvement of working conditions, and above all ensures that whoever stitched your ball has received a fair wage.

We believe this gives an entirely new meaning to the term, "customer satisfaction"!

Gidpur is a small village outside of Sialkot, Pakistan. It is centered around a large banyan tree that provides welcome shade from the sweltering heat.

The village is very poor. The road is extremely rutted and the few buildings are single-story brick dwellings that house large families. Martin and James from FairDeal Trading (our sister company in the UK) met the Khan family, who had been joined just days before by a new member, a healthy boy.

The mother - Mushulcut - was sitting with her new baby. The baby was delivered at a good hospital in Sialkot, where Mushulcut stayed for 24 hours after giving birth. The hospital fees and all necessary medicines were paid entirely by our Fair Trade program, which is funded by your purchases of our certified Fair Trade sports balls.

"I am very thankful that the hospital was paid for," she said. "Without this, we would be in debt. My last baby was also delivered with the help of the Fair Trade (program), and she was a girl. Now we have a boy and we have called him Morcadus, which means The Holy."

Mushulcut's husband Selferaz is also keen to say how helpful the Fair Trade initiative has been to them. "We are a Fair Trade family," he said with a grin on his face.