Resources For Taking Action
There are many resources available to help us learn more about fair trade, global economic justice and concrete actions we can take to make a difference. Listed here are good places to start. If you know of other good resources, please let us know!
Co-op America
Co-op America is a non-profit dedicated to helping people use their economic power to create a more socially just and environmentally sustainable world.
Fair Trade Federation
The FTF is an association of Fair Trade wholesalers, retailers and producers committed to building the Fair Trade economy.
Fair Trade Resource
The Fair Trade information gateway! FTRN raises consumer awareness about improving people's lives through fair trade alternatives.
Student Action CampaignUnited Students for Fair Trade
USFT is a collaboration of students working towards economic justice through the promotion of fair trade products, principles and policies. Mission, Vision & Values
Fair Trade Coffee
The only independent, third party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States.
National Green Pages
Search for over 25,000 products and services from 2000 socially responsible companies in 170 categories.
Responsible Shopper.org
This resource helps you find out about the social and environmental performances of over 400 major corporations from which you shop. Use it to direct your purchases to the best companies and avoid the worst.
Dollars & Sense
The Magazine of Economic Justice
No Sweat!
End sweatshops. Support fair trade and labor.
Boycott Action News: Consumer Power for Change
Boycotts are powerful tools for raising awareness about the impact of corporate practices on workers, communities and the Earth. Many well-respected organizations have called boycotts to put an end to unfair labor practices, animal testing, dangerous pesticide use, and other abuses of people and resources.
WoodWise
Working to preserve forests by reducing demand for wood products and promoting sustainable alternatives.
One Percent in Community
Created in partnership with the Social Investment Forum, we aim to get investors to put one percent of their portfolios into community investments which would put over $15 billion to work in rebuilding low-income communities in the U.S. and abroad.
Social Invest.org
Created in partnership with the Social Investment Forum, this website offers detailed information on concepts, practices and growth of socially responsible investing.
Shareholder Action Network
This program, run in partnership with the Social Investment Forum, aims to increase the effectiveness of shareholder advocacy by expanding the network of institutions, organizations and financial professionals participating in such actions.
Witness for Peace
Working for human rights, peace, justice and sustainable economies through socially responsible travel, personal experience, popular education and grassroots activism.
***Esperanza en Accion highly recommends Witness for Peace s social justice education trips to Nicaragua, Mexico, Columbia and Cuba. (WFP has one of the only remaining licenses to travel legally to Cuba.) For their delegation schedule, see WFP Travel Programs
WFP also has some of the best Action Tools
IMF/World Bank & Debt Cancellation50 Years.org
50 Years is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice is a coalition of 200 U.S. grassroots women s, solidarity, faith-based, policy, social- and economic-justice, youth, labor and development organizations dedicated to the profound transformation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Jubilee USA Network: Drop the Debt
World Bank
Life & Debt: the film
Quest for Peace
Pastors for Peace
Independent MediaZ Magazine & Z Net
***A community of people committed to social change. Very comprehensive website on the majority of the issues.
BOOKSEsperanza en Accion encourages you to empower your locally-owned and independent bookstores. For on-line purchases, we recommend the legendary independent bookseller Powell's Books
Fast Food Nation
by Eric Schlosser
check out Powell's Interview with Eric Schlosser
Globalization and its Discontents
by Joseph Stiglitz
A People's History of the United States of America
by Howard Zinn
Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity
by Frances Lapp
Small Wonder
a book of essays
by Barbara Kingsolver
The Bean Trees
A work of fiction
by Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible
a work of fiction
by Barbara Kingsolver
The Best of What We Are
A must-read about Nicaragua!
by John Brentlinger
QUOTES"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together." ~Lilla Watson, Australian Aborigine
"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." ~Mother Teresa
"Hope is not the belief that what you are doing will turn out well; but rather the conviction that what you are doing is right, regardless of how it turns out." ~Vclav Havel
"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means." ~Mohandas Gandi
"In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self (and of God) and of the world." ~Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox
"Grasping brings less, and letting go brings more. What God wants from our fear of scarcity is not an obsessive capitalism, but the painful spiritual lesson that we cannot buy the security we seek. Those will come to us only as we let go and live in the grace of God, and in solidarity with those for whom scarcity is no illusion but a matter of life and death." ~Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox
"They should have never given us Bibles! The Bible tells us God is on the side of the oppressed and that the oppressors will bite the dust." ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"The neighbor is not just the one who comes to me for help, the one whom I find in my path. The neighbor is also the one for whom I must search& in factories, in slums, in farms and mines& the neighbor is the one in whose path I intentionally place myself, the one whom I approach and actively seek& and the one whom I allow to change my life." Power of the Poor
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." ~Margaret Mead
PARTING WORDS OF HOPEMay God bless you with DISCOMFORT! Discomfort as easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with ANGER! Anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with TEARS! Tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort and empower them and ourselves, and turn our pain into joy. And may God bless you with FOOLISHNESS! Enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done! ~adapted from a Franciscan Blessing