Fair Trade Videos

The Earth Island Institute created the annual Brower Youth Awards to honor six young people for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental and social justice advocacy. Each winner is awarded $3000 and brought to San Francisco for the award week and a backcountry camping trip. Adarsha Shivakumar used his proceeds from winning a spelling bee to co-found a project growing sustainable jatropha, a plant that can be used as biofuel, in India. His work provides an ecologically friendly and economically profitable crop for farmers who would otherwise grow tobacco, a much more harmful plant. This video from Rikshaw Films shows the impact Adarsha and his project have had around the world.

People Tree had its beginnings in 1991, and is the pioneer of Fair Trade Fashion internationally, promoting environmental justice and Fair Trade, and works alongside People Tree the Fair Trade Company. The Foundation brings benefits to an even greater number of farmers and artisans through scaling up training, technical support and environmental initiatives and through raising awareness and campaigning for fair and sustainable fashion. They reducing poverty by creating new work opportunities and community support for people in developing countries, promoting work and community projects. They promote more environmental projects and organic cotton farming and campaign to create an empowering environment for Fair Trade and sustainability amongst the public, business leaders and policy makers... Good on them!

What are our elected leaders doing to fix our broken economy?

The economy is not doing as well as some may think.

The United States exists in a free trade environment which is systematically undermining our economy, siphoning money out of the system, and outsourcing American prosperity in exchange for cheap electronics, clothing, and accessories.

It is time to fix the situation and get America back on a path toward growth and prosperity once again. The only way to do this is by pursuing fair trade policies which counteract the decades of unsustainable imbalances brought on through free trade. We need policies that can be adapted quickly and that meet the needs of this nation first and foremost.

The Bitter Aftertaste casts huge doubts on the capacity of chocoholics and shopaholics to transform the lives of farmers in the developing world through their super market trolleys. Shot in Ghana and the UK, this hard hitting documentary is sure to stir more than coffee and leave a bitter taste in the mouths of those who espouse Fair Trade as a mechanism for development. The film asks the questions often thought but never asked, does Fair Trade really change anything or just make Western consumers feel good? A must see for everyone who believes the developing world deserves better.

The trade deficit in the United States is one of the most pervasive and destructive afflictions facing our economy today. In the past four years this economy has accumulated annual deficits of $711 billion, $753 billion, $700 billion and $681 billion dollars respectively.