Our Fair Trade Story
On December 2, 1980, two members of the Cleveland Catholic Mission Team in El Salvador were martyred (murdered): Jean Donovan, a lay woman from St Luke’s Parish in Lakewood, and Sister Dorothy Kazel, an Ursuline sister who had taught at Beaumont School in Cleveland Heights.
The InterReligious Task Force on Central America (IRTF) was formed so that we here in northeast Ohio could live out their legacy—standing in solidarity with oppressed peoples as they struggle for peace, dignity and justice.
Promoting economic justice through fair trade is an important part of IRTF’s human rights mission. IRTF brought Equal Exchange, the first fair trade coffee company in the US, to Cleveland in the mid-1990s. Many congregations started selling and serving Equal Exchange coffee as an act of justice and solidarity. Heinen’s became the first grocery chain in the US to sell Equal xchange in all its stores.
IRTF, an interfaith social justice organization, is a leader in the fair trade movement. Shoppers can visit several fair trade stores in the Cleveland-Akron area, in addition to the grocery stores that carry some fair trade products. Through the NE Ohio Fair Trade Network, IRTF helps to coordinate the annual Ohio Fair Trade Expo, which is held each October at John Carroll University.
About IRTF Fair Trade
IRTF works towards justice and equity in the distribution, access to, and participation in the production and consumption of the world’s resources for the people of Central America and Colombia. IRTF examines the corporate-dominated globalization of the economy through the lens of people in Central America and Colombia and how their reality is linked to ours in NE Ohio. IRTF challenges the dominant economic model that results in exploitation both at home and abroad. IRTF offers an alternative through Fair Trade.
Fair trade is a trade model that sets a series of standards to ensure fair wages and human dignity for producers, community investment, environmental sustainability, and more. IRTF promotes Fair Trade as an alternative trade model to the conventional free market system of trade that currently dominates our world and further divides us into “haves” and “have nots.”
At outreach tables throughout the year (schools, faith congregations, community festivals), IRTF sells artisan-crafted fair trade items—raising tens of thousands of dollars—so that artisans and farmers in Latin America can earn a living wage. Items include: tagua nut jewelry, coconut shell jewelry, silver jewelry, painted wood products, beaded key chains, ornaments, earrings, headbands, wallets (from re-purposed materials), handbags
Fair trade is an important of IRTF’s human rights mission: to call together people in NE Ohio to walk in solidarity with oppressed peoples of Central America and Colombia to achieve peace, justice, human rights and systemic transformation through nonviolence.
Fair Trade items
- The items that IRTF sells are handcrafted by worker-owners of fair trade cooperatives in southern Mexico (Nahua people of Guerrero), Central America and Colombia
- Colombia (tagua jewelry, wire yarn animals)
- El Salvador (coconut shell jewelry, painted wood products, crocheted purses)
- Guatemala (beaded key chains, ornaments, earrings, headbands; wallets, handbags)
- Mexico (silver jewelry)
- Honduras (some of the earrings).
- The cooperatives are small businesses, worker-owned, mostly by women. They set their own hours and working conditions. Most importantly, they pay themselves a living wage (in the local context), but still live in poverty.
- Because they earn a living wage, their children don’t have to drop out of school to help support the family. So fair trade is also helping the next generation as well.
- By selling handmade crafts, we highlight the importance of fair trade as a just alternative to corporate-led globalization, which is shutting out small producers.
Price range of items
$5-10: small clay bobble-head animals, wire yarn animals, hacky sacks, finger puppets, beaded key chains, beaded holiday ornaments, friendship bracelets, snap leather bracelets, barrettes, wallets
$10-20: wallets, small purses, handbags, coconut shell earrings, silver earrings, silver bracelets, silver rings, novelty items
$20-30: wallets, purses, handbags, laptop covers
$30-40: purses, handbags, messenger bags
$40-50: large purses, messenger bags
Equal Exchange items
IRTF is a long-term partner of Equal Exchange, the first fair trade coffee company in the U.S. IRTF brought Equal Exchange to NE Ohio in the mid-1990s. Heinen’s became the first grocery chain to sell Equal Exchange in all its stores.
IRTF offers these Equal Exchange fair trade food products:
$5 chocolate bars
$5 tea
$8 hot cocoa mix
$8 baking cocoa
$10 coffee (regular)
$12 decaf or flavored
$18 olive oil
