Tomorrow is World Fair Trade Day and it seemed a great time to let you know about two exciting educational resources designed to foster real change in our global food system.
The first is an exciting tool focused on Fair Trade for parents, teachers and activists who would like to bring social justice to the classroom through a multi-media curriculum about small farmers across the globe that grow our cocoa, coffee, tea and other products. This multi-media curriculum introduces students to the issues facing small-scale farmers and shows the ways in which consumer choices can affect their lives and communities.
Equal Exchange’s curriculum, Win-Win Solutions: An Introduction to Fair Trade and Cooperative Economics is free and available for download!
This curriculum gives youngsters enough information to understand the kind of change that is needed and the tools to help them take appropriate actions:
Win Solutions: An Introduction to Fair Trade and Cooperative Economics
Unit 1: Our Choices Matter—why change to our food system is necessary and how we can make a difference
Unit 2: Understanding Fair Trade—role plays to help students begin to imagine life as a small scale cocoa farmer
Unit 3: Understanding Cooperatives—real-life trade-offs and stories from the lives of organized small scale farmers
Unit 4: Make A Difference—A template for students to work together to solve real, local community problems.
PLUS: the curriculum can now support Equal Exchange school fundraisers. Raise money and make a difference!
Lisa Knutson, teacher at Montessori Visions Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada : “The curriculum has sparked great interest and insight in my class and has lead to wonderful discussions about fairness and economics.”
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The second exciting education-for-action curriculum was created by two long-time organizational friends and allies of Equal Exchange: Grassroots International and the National Family Farm Coalition:
Our global food system is terribly broken. Together we can fix it!
The food sovereignty movement is an exciting grassroots movement that has developed internationally in response to the havoc wrought by the current food system. It is composed of small farmers, farmworkers, fishers, consumers, environmentalists and indigenous peoples, all seeking to reclaim the right of nations and communities to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies. The food sovereignty movement calls for policies – local, national and international – that are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally sound.
The curriculum is divided into four modules: one each for consumers, faith and anti-hunger groups, environmentalists and farmers, all designed to help:
- Understand the ways in which current U.S. agricultural, trade and energy policies undermine the right of communities and nations around the world to determine their own food policies
- See how food sovereignty and locally based food systems rooted in social justice and environmental sustainability can be practical alternatives to unsustainable industrial agriculture
- Envision how people can act together across borders to build local food systems and pass fair agriculture, trade and energy policies
“Food for Thought and Action: A Food Sovereignty Curriculum is a remarkably useful popular education tool. It offers a practical way to strengthen a growing food sovereignty movement that includes consumers, farmers, environmentalists and faith communities. Building from the experiences of literally millions of grassroots activists worldwide, Food for Thought and Action challenges us to fix our broken food system.” Micahel Pollan, Author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire
Small Farmers. Big Change. 
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