Children Against Chocolate Aided Oppression:CACAO

Some Fair Trade Chocolate

2008-12-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

I realized we never really recommended any Fair Trade Chocolate companies so far, so below I've listed some we have encountered along the way. Art Bar is a personal favorite as it seems to be the most widely available (if you are in the NYC area I have seen them sold at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sunshine Cinemas, and the 4th Street Food Co-op) and offers discount fundraising rates. The Co-op has Rapunzel. Whole Foods seems to have begun stocking Divine.

http://www.4thstreetfoodcoop.org/twiki/
http://www.rapunzel.com/products/rapunzel/rapunzel_chocolate_our.html
http://ithacafinechocolates.stores.yahoo.net/
http://www.divinechocolate.com/home/default.aspx

Protest at M&M/ Mars in Times Square

2008-09-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

As a culminating activity, the students took to the streets and held a protest in front of the M&M Mars store in Times Square. Holding banners and chanting, students engaged tourists and people walking by on the issue, educating them about fair trade practices.

We are not finished yet!!!!

2008-06-10T17:09:00.001-07:00

By no means is our mission complete. While we have brought fair trade chocolate into our community we also wanted to address the fact that depsite promises of change from the chocolate industry there is still reports of child labor taking place in the Ivory Coast.

We have planned a protest in front of the Time Square M&M store for Wednesday June 11, the day before World Day Against Child Labor.

In addition to the fact that many of the large companies still deal with farmers who use child labor we also want to bring to light Fair Trade. None of the billion dollar chocolate corporations
have addressed the issue of fair trade and the opportunity to pay cocoa farmers an equitable wage which would help them break the cycle of poverty.

Students posing with Jose...happy to have their fair trade chocolate

2008-06-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

They couldn't pass up on an opportunity for a photo!

They are back to their chocolate addicted ways....only this time there is no Hershey and M&M products involved. We are officialy a Fair Trade Certified Chocolate classroom.

Art Bar hits the shelves of C-Town

2008-06-10T16:53:00.001-07:00

After Jose, the C-Town manager, agreed to place the order there were a few minor complications that delayed the arrival of Art Bar chococlate into C-Town. For about a week and a half my students were asking me "Does C-Town have Art Bar yet?" If it wasn't for my reassurance than I am quite sure I'd have a few kids relapse. They were definitely at their breaking point and then the day had finally come.

I remember walking into C-Town and seeing the bars right up by the front counter. It was such a great feeling knowing that our students efforts had paid off. I gave Jose a big hug and purchased an art bar, fair trade certified chocolate!

Presenting the petition to C-Town

2008-06-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

After collecting more than 400 signatures , we presented our petition to the manager of C-Town. Our students prepared statements which they read asking for C-Town to start selling Fair Trade chocolate.

Much to our delight, Jose, the store manager, was very open to what we had to say. He had never heard of Fair Trade Chocolate and he was also unaware of some of the labor practices of the major chocolate companies.

One thing that concerned Jose was the price of the chocolate. With Fair Trade Certified chocolate costing more than most of the other chocolates that C-Town carried, Jose was concerned that people from the neighborhood would not be willing to spend their money on fair trade chocolate.
But our students assured him that there were 32 customers right there in front of him who would be willing to shell out a little more money for fair trade chocolate.

After taking things into consideration Jose agreed!!! It was one of the greatest moments in my young teaching career. Our students had taken action and made a difference in their community. It was a moment of empowerment for our students who often feel like their voices are never being heard.

(pictured: Jose, the C-Town manager holding a Ithica Fine Chocolates order form and Mr. Hildreth)

Social Justice Assessment

2008-05-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

My colleague and friend Emily Eller did a semester long independent project with my class this year as part of her NYU Graduate program. She spent the semester observing my class as we studied child labor and fair trade. Her final project was to design an alternative assessment to gauge the effectiveness of the teaching and learning that went on around this topic in my classroom. This was tricky since we were not necessarily teaching skills or concepts as much as understandings and awareness. Our idea was to set up a scenario in which students would have to apply what they've learned and give their own opinions about similar issues. Needless to say this is not a quantitative right/wrong type of assessment. However, we certainly had desired outcomes. Here is what we came up with.

Name_____________________________________________ Date_________________

Millions of New Yorkers ride the subway everyday. The MTA gets their cars from a factory in Africa, Subway Cars, Inc. The people who work in the factory are paid far below minimum wage. Making the subway cars exposes factory workers to many hazardous chemicals, and the machinery used to shape the cars and cut holes for doors and windows is extremely dangerous. They work very long hours, and are not allowed to have a union that would protect their rights.

1. If it would cost you a lot more money ($2 for a subway swipe versus about $6 plus tip in a taxi), and would take you longer to get somewhere, would you continue to use the subway knowing what you do about how the cars are made?
Why or why not?

____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

2. What does it make you think/wonder when you learn that a reputable company such as the MTA gets their product in this manner? What does it make you think about how other companies may manufacture their products?

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

3. Name three steps you as an individual and member of a community could take to try to help the situation named above, and how they might help:

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

4. On a separate piece of paper, please draft a letter to Mr. Bob Smith, president of the Metro Transit Authority (MTA). BE SPECIFIC: Mr. Smith is willing to read letters from the general public concerning his company, but at the moment, he has no idea, “what all the fuss is about”. What do you know that he doesn’t? How can you help change the situation in Africa? What will you ask of Mr. Smith? What will you do if the situation doesn’t change?

Indy Kids Profiles Child Labor

2008-05-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

The recent issue of "Indy Kids" (Issue #15 Summer 2008)has an excellent 2 page color spread on child labor titled "Kids At Work." There are some really vivid photos in the article as well as it being a good resource for introducing the topic of child labor. As seasoned veterans to the cause, there wasn't much our students didn't already know, but it is nice to see this issue getting some (alternative) media attention.

Two documentaries are mentioned in the article, one title Stolen Childhoods which documents child labor in 8 countries and another titled No es un Joc (Not a Game). No es Joc can be viewed online (link below)with English subtitles and is about 45 minutes long (exactly a class period's length!)

ALSO the article mentions that June 12th is World Day Against Child Labor. What will YOU do? We are currently in the process of organizing some sort of protest on this day, possibly at Times Square's M&M's World. Check back for details. Also mentioned is a group of students from Broad Meadows Elementary School in Quincy, Massachusetts that formed a campaign to fight child labor in 1994 after Iqbal Masih, a famous activist and spokesperson for child laborers, visited their school. Read more about Iqbal Masih and Broad Meadows' work here.

www/mirrorimage.com/iqbal/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iqbal_Masih

Some other links:

Indy Kids Issue #15 Summer '08: http://www.indykids.net/issues/pdf/indykids_iss15.pdf
No es un Joc
http://video.google.es/videoplay?doicd=7480117350375557019

Stay tuned for more information and to see what WE will do on June 12th and how you can get involved!

Ladies and gentleman give a round of applause to.... Annissa Sularno WOO...HOO!!!!

2008-04-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Meet Patrice Gonzalez aka "Chicken Wing" and read about her Fair Trade Chocolate experience

2008-04-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

Integrating The Arts With Our Project

2008-04-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

With such an emphasis on Literacy and Math in New York City schools the Arts often get overlooked. This project was a great way to incorporate art into our unit of study.

The students designed these posters which we then used during our neighborhood walk to collect signatures for the petition. The posters were also used in public service announcements we created ( more on that later!!!). Below is an explanation of the concept of each poster.

Poster 1: The Hershey's bar is in chains; representing the chains of children in child labor. Underneath the chains are children working in the fields picking cocoa beans. The Art Bar is surrounded by a rainbow because Art Bar is representative of Fair Trade Certified chocolate. In the top left and bottom right corners are the symbols used on products that are Fair Trade Certified.

Poster 2: Connecting the idea of Good Vs. Evil from our Fantasy Unit in Literacy, you notice the two distinct settings in this poster. The dark gloomy side with rain and children working in the fields represents the ills of child labor. The bright colorful side represents a Fair Trade environment where children can attend school and have a normal childhood. Notice the arrow pointing to the Fair Trade side carrying the slogan one of the students made up:
"Fair Trade Is The Better Way"

How many signatures?

2008-04-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

More than 400 people signed our petition!!!! The kids felt so empowered by this experience.

Now it was time to bring the petition to the supermarket.

Takin It To The Streets!!!

2008-04-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

After printing up copies of our published petiiton it was time for the kids to take action and find people to support our cause.

Before going out, the students wrote scripts of what they wanted to say to people. We did not want the students to read directly from the published petition. We wanted the kids to articulate everything they've learned in the previous months about Fair Trade Chocolate and Non-Fair Trade Companies.

We took our petition to Tompkins Square Park and the surrounding area. We were suprised at the positive response we got. Not only did we inform many people about Fair Trade Chocolate and the labor practices of companies like Hershey and M&M, , we met hundreds of people who believed what we were doing was truly extraordinary.

Students working together to write the petition

2008-04-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

In writing their parts for the petition, students applied what they know of the writing process.

The gathered ideas, drafted , revised, edited and then finalized their part, making it ready for the published copy of the petition.

The PETITION

2008-04-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

We wanted to make sure our petition was Pro-Fair Trade Chocolate, rather than Anti-Supermarket for not selling Fair Trade Chocolate. So, our petition was requesting the sale of Fair Trade Chocolate in local community grocers in the Lower East Side.

We wanted to make sure our Petition addressed the following areas:

Who we are and our beliefs
Where companies like Hershey and M&M's get their cocoa beans
What we are asking for (selling Fair Trade Chocolate in their stores)
Why they should listen to us
How we think the sale of Fair Trade Chocolate will affect the store

We divided the students into groups and each group focused on writing a concise, well organized paragraph that addressed one of the above mentioned areas they were assigned.

We combined each of the parts the groups had written to form our petition.

Figuring out our next steps.......

2008-04-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

After mailing out our Valentine's Day cards to Mr. Opler and World's Finest we decided to address the issue of the availability of Fair Trade Certified chocolate. To engage them we gave the following prompt to respond to in their writers notebook; "Why have or why haven't you chosen to eat Fair Trade Certified chocolate. We stressed the importance of answering this question truthfully in hopes of finding out some of the reasons why our students had eaten non-fair trade chocolate.

After writing their responses we had a class discussion in which it was revealed that some of our students had relapsed and had eaten products from Hershey and M&M's since we had declared our boycott of non-fair trade chocolate on Valentine's Day.

The students who had eaten non-fair trade chocolate cited the following reasons:

Hershey and M&M products are everywhere they go and easily available for them to purchase
You can not find Fair Trade Certified chocolate at the local community supermarket the students and their family frequent.

This led us to think.....

"What can be the next actions we can take to make Fair Trade Chocolate available to these chocoholics?"

We discussed ways people can initiate change. A few students had said boycott...but we realized that we should not punish the local supermarket for being unaware of fair trade chocolate.

And then came that magical "P" word that we were looking for..... PETITION.

Stay tuned for the next post ...we'll tell you all about!

Valentines to World's Finest Chocolate CEO

2008-04-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

After learning that World Finest Chocolates, the company responsible for educational fundraising sales across the U.S., does not use fair trade chocolate, the students were upset. Following the global exchange curriculum, the students wrote letters to the CEO of the company expressing their disappointment and encouraging them to use more fair trade cacao. Here are samples of their work.

Finding out about Fair Trade

2008-04-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

After learning about abuses taking place in the cocoa farming industry, we were directed to

http://www.globalexchange.org/. It is through this website that we learned about Fair Trade and the guidelines surrounding this system of trade.

Under Fair Trade practices:

Forced and abusive child labor are prohibited
Farming families earn a price that is adequate to meet their basic human needs
Environmentally sustainable production methods are required

After reading about Fair Trade our students decided to take action by demanding World's Finest Chocolate, one the largest provider of chocolate products to schools, churches and communities for fundraisers, commit to purchasing five percent of their cocoa as fair trade certified.

We decided to ask the President of WFC,Edmond Opler, to do this in the form of Valentine's Day cards. Valentines Day became the official day that we began our boycott against non-fair trade chocolate companies.

STAY TUNED>>>>CARDS WILL BE UP SHORTLY.....

Link to Global Exchange's "World's Finest Chocolate Campaign":

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/worldsfinestsignon2005.html

How we got started

2008-04-06T15:52:00.001-07:00

TEACHERS!!! BEFRIEND YOUR LOCAL LIBRARIAN.....they have tons of resources for us. On a recent visit to my local library I became curious about what happened to old magazines and periodicals. I found out that most libraries keep them in back inventory for 0ne to two years. After that, they either throw them out or give them to needy NYC public school teachers who barley have a magazine in their library!

After rummaging through the copies of Highlights, Discovery Kids and Faces I received, I came across this issue of Faces magazine. The entire issue is devoted to child labor. I had known about child labor in a few industries but I was shocked to discover how widespread it is across the world.

This was the article we focused on "Chocolate Coated Slavery." As a class we did a shared reading of the article which was followed by a discussion. Many students expressed their knowledge of Nike using unfair labor practices but they were surprised to see that child labor plays a role in a thing they loved; chocolate.

Later on I will scan these articles so you can add them to your resources for the unit.

Welcome To Our "CACAO" Blog

2008-04-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

Thank you for stopping by to visit our blog "Children Against Chocolate Aided Oppression." My name is Neil Rathan and I am a second year teacher at P.S. 34. My colleague Daniel Hildreth, a first year teacher and our mentor and friend Bree Picower, share a deep belief in teaching our students about social justice and the difference they can make in society.

Over the past two months we have been learning the truths about the cocoa industry and corporations like Hershey's and M&M Mars. Thier use of child labor/ slaves on cocoa farms and the paltry wages they pay their farmers was shocking and appalling to our students who had grown up eating products from both companies.

Through conversations and class discussions it became evident that this was an issue that touched the hearts of our students. This was not a topic that could be looked at half-heartedly and we decided to explore it further.

Through our research we learned about Fair Trade Certified Chocolate. Fair trade chocolate ensures that farmers receive a fair price for their product and that their labor force is not comprised of children or slaves.

It is sickening to think that companies like Hersheys, M&M Mars and Nestle, whose revenues range from 4.9 billion to 65 billion dollars, look at the dollar signs instead of the human side when it comes to labor practices.Their avoidance of participating in fair trade practices speaks volumes of what they think about the farmers and the families who pick their cooca beans.

On the other hand, there are many companies that have devoted themselves to fair labor practices. These companies can honorably stamp their products with the Fair Trade Certified logo. Not only are fair trade farmers afforded the opportunity fo a better life, thier children will be able to recieve an education, thus helping to break the cycle of poverty.

After all this talk about Fair Trade Chocolate, our students were fiending to get their Fair Trade Chocolate fix. The search for FTC (only a few stores in the Lower East Side have FTC chocolate products) spawned our next idea. Our students wanted to bring Fair Trade Chocolate into their community supermarkets, C-Town and Associated.

We decided to create a petition asking local community grocers to sell Fair Trade Chocolate. Through our student's hard work we were able to collect more than 400 signatures.

We plan on presenting this petition to the supermarkets later on this week.

Stay tuned for more posts in the upcoming weeks.For teachers, we will post all materials used in this unit of study. We will also posts photos of our students working on various projects asscociated with this unit and Public Service Announcement videos which we recently shot.

Feel free to contact us through this blog or by email at: rerun1977@aol.com or dsh243@nyu.edu

Thank You For Your Interest

Some relevent and useful websites relating to fair trade.

2008-04-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

http://ithacafinechocolates.stores.yahoo.net/

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/valentines2007.html

http://transfairusa.org/

Fair Trade Certification Symbol

2008-04-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

Look for this symbol on products to tell whether they are fair trade certified.