Easter Chocolates

As Easter has come and gone, the kiddies have all probably fully gorged and digested their chocolate easter bunnies and other candies.

Therefore, it was good to see the Chocolate - Fair Trade - child slavery issue get a little more press. Granted, it is via the BBC website, but press is press and the more people are informed about the issue, the more people can take a stand against the chocolate industry and demand changes.

Child cocoa workers still 'exploited'

'Slavery' behind Easter chocolate

Even mom asked me if I had gotten my chocolate bunny for Easter and I had to explain the reason I was boycotting all non-Fair Trade marked chocolate, tea, coffee, and sugar. She thinks I am crazy, but I did tell her I would get her some Fair-Trade dark chocolate bars since she lives in podunk Georgia and her local grocery store probably doesn't stock anything Fair Trade.

200th Anniversary

As I pointed out a few posts ago and by my buddy Joy in her blog, today is the 200th Anniversary of the end of the slave trade in England. If your not familiar with this, go see the movie Amazing Grace. For me, this movie was a great motivation for educating myself on this topic and opening my eyes to the horrible and growing slave trade throughout the world.

Although slavery ended long ago here in the US, slavery is still rampant in other parts of the world; children being forced into slave labor in west Africa and girls sold into the sex slavery in parts of Asia and India. It is disheartening and overwhelming. We live in such an isolated bubble here in the US; like ostriches with our heads in the sand, ignoring the plight of others outside the "developed" nations.

I was glad to see that one of our national news networks (CBS) had a story about this 200th anniversary and the continuing child slave trade in western Africa. They highlighted the Sanctuary of Moses, a school started by a Miami business woman to help fight child slavery in the western African nation of Benin.

What can you do?

Start by educating yourself via these websites....
International Justice Mission
The Amazing Change
Stop the Traffik

Purchase Fair Trade products, especially coffees, teas, sugar, and chocolates.
Equal Exchange
Fair Trade

And finally, go out there and tell others about this issue.

Updates

It's been a busy week so sorry about the lack of updates on my blog recently.

• Got my hair cut on Friday. It was getting looonnngggg, so it was nice to finally get it chopped off.
• I hate doing taxes. Yuck!
• I am almost finished with my second Blurb book. This one is a photo book of my families trip to Yellowstone National Park in December 2005. I can't wait for my mom and brothers family to see it.
  
• The Fodor's Forum is a fabulous place for information on travel around the world.
  
• I got a new Flickr account for my photos. Now I got to transfer them all from Shutterfly and Smugmug to Flickr. That should take a few years. :-)
• I was stopped by a cop last Thursday. I was very distracted and on the phone (I know...not good). He lectured me on appropriate driving behavior and then walked back to his vehicle. I thought for sure, he was just going to get his ticket book so I proceeded to get my wallet out to retrieve license and insurance card. Next thing I know, cop guy is driving away. I actually uttered, "But don't you want my license and insurance card?"
  
• I just found out that I can never go to Uganda or Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas since those countries require Yellow Fever shots and I can't get YF shots due to my RA. Poop... I was actually thinking this might be my next big vacation down the road.
  
• I have a new favorite grocery store now. The local Greenwood Market not only has a HUGE Equal Exchange display in the coffee section, but they also sell Fair Trade teas, sugar, and of course, chocolates. In fact, they carry two brands of Fair trade cocoa powder. YAY!!! I don't drink coffee, but I will be buying some of the Fair Trade kind when my mom visits.
  
• This coming Sunday, March 25th, is the 200th anniversary of the end of the Slave Trade in England. Celebrate it by buying Fair Trade products or going to see the movie Amazing Grace (or both)!

Death By Chocolate

This has been a different kind of weekend.

This past week, I had done some investigations regarding slavery and chocolate. Did you know over 40% of the worlds chocolate comes from the Ivory Coast where child slavery runs rampant? Did you know that 12,000 children have been trafficked into cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast? Why? So you can have that chocolate bar or M&Ms or those chocolate chips for your cookies. It kind of puts a bitter taste on chocolate for me now and lead me to a cleaning out of my fridge and pantry of all the Nestle, Hershey's, and Mars/M&Ms chocolates I had.

And for all those wondering, those big chocolate companies like Hershey's, Nestle, and Mars continue to turn a blind eye to the fact that they are buying cocoa from farms where children are enslaved. Their comments? They don't own the farms, they only buy the cocoa. Nice! Way to be a corporate citizen.

What can you do? First start by buying only Fair Trade Chocolate. Fair Trade products are certified guarantying farmer do not use any kind of slavery to farm the raw cocoa beans and that chocolate manufacturers are paying a fair price to the farmers for the cocoa beans. Look for the label above on your chocolate (and your tea and coffee too) and talk to your grocery stores manager if you don't see any Fair Trade Products. You can learn about Fair Trade here.

I found both Fair Trade chocolate chips by Sunspire and Fair Trade cocoa powder by Equal Exchange in one of my local markets. I was surprised however that Trader Joe's, the local choice for all the liberal earth conscious organic granola munching folks out here in Seattle does not have Fair Trade chocolates on their shelves. I was disappointed.

I haven't found any Fair Trade chocolate syrup, so if any of you know where I can get some, please let me know. Otherwise, I will have to figure out how to make my own using my recently found Fair Trade cocoa powder and Alton Brown's recipe.

On top of all this, I went to see the movie "The Amazing Grace" on Sunday. This movie details the wonderful story of William Wilberforce, who lead the British Empire to abolish the slave trade back in the late 1700's - early 1800s. What an amazing man and what amazing conviction. I highly recommend this movie.

Seeing this movie lead me to further investigation on slavery. Via the International Justice Mission website, I found this exerpt which shows we are a long way from William Wilberforce's goal to end slavery.

There are actually more slaves in the world today than were extracted from Africa during 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

In fact, experts say that there are more than 25 million human beings held as slaves in our world today. These people are not slaves in a metaphorical sense – they are actual slaves held in forced servitude by other human beings.

When Wilberforce sought to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807, about 40,000 to 50,000 new slaves a year were being boarded onto British ships. While a nightmarishly large number for its day, there are far more children sold into sex slavery every year in the 21st Century -- as a many a million a year according to UNICEF – to say nothing of the millions of adults held in other forms of slavery in the mines, rock quarries, brick factories, plantations and rice mills of our world.