Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. Perhaps it’s because I’m making up for lost time since my family did not start celebrating the holiday until after I was 10 (my parents weren’t the biggest fans of ghosts, witches and the intensive pumpkin-carving process), or perhaps it’s because… well, frankly, it’s awesome! I love the cooler weather, the pretty leaves and the first rain showers of fall (oh wait… I live in Southern California now), as well as the fabulously creepy music, watching “Nightmare Before Christmas” a dozen times, eating pounds of sugar and trying to out-do everyone else in the creative costume category.While October ushers in the Halloween season, it is also Fair Trade Month. TransFair USA is holding a month-long campaign to spread awareness of fair trade consumer options to support small farmers in the developing world.
How perfect that these two events should coincide, because Global Exchange is once again hosting its Reverse Trick-or-Treating program.
According to the Africa Faith and Justice Network, 284,000 children work in abusive labor conditions in West Africa’s cocoa fields, and many cocoa farmers cannot meet their basic needs because companies pay such low wages. An astounding 70% of the chocolate you find in stores comes from these West African fields – that chocolate doesn’t seem so sweet now, does it?
The Reverse Trick-or-Treating program works to address this injustice by allowing kids to give fair trade chocolate back to adults while trick-or-treating on Halloween. Attached to the chocolate is a card with more information about the issues of the cocoa industry and the solutions Fair Trade offers. You can order a free kit from Global Exchange here. If you, like me, will not be trick-or-treating on Halloween, you can also order fair trade chocolate and flyers on Fair Trade cocoa to hand out.
This is a great way to promote justice in the cocoa industry and work to end poverty in these West African communities. Happy Halloween, everyone!
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