"Mum, is that chocolate cake fair trade?" Ah, we try to educate our children about how some of our purchasing choices can make a positive difference for poorer people around the world and then you can't even buy cheap chocolate any more without your kids checking that it's fairly traded. Oh, the guilt! Oh, the consequences of education! Oh, my conscience!
When I think about buying non-fair trade chocolate or cocoa now, I think, what will I say to my children when they ask me, "Mum, is that chocolate fair trade?" I've thought I could answer, "Sorry darling this chocolate is probably made from cocoa that children your own age worked to harvest. Children who were taken from their homes and forced to work on a cocoa plantation, often under dangerous conditions in West Africa, who paid very little or maybe nothing." (ouch!)
I have reflected upon whether I am just motivated purely by the guilt of being caught out here. Well, maybe, but I feel very unhappy about needing to give the above answer to my kids, and as I think about that answer it reminds me that I am unhappy about a world that exploits children so that I can have a treat.
And so, in our house, we have just about completely switched to fair trade chocolate(I say just about, because I know I am not always 100% perfect at this decision). It is more expensive, it is not as readily available (at least not the dark choc, and I reckon a number of the brands are not as nice as the big name brands), and it is hard to find fair trade cocoa. We have made this shift to almost 100% fair trade chocolate gradually. I figured previously, that even if I bought one block of fair trade chocolate that was making a little bit of a difference, and now we do it a bit more, it's a little bit more of a difference. Chocolate and cocoa have moved to be a true 'treat' food in our house. I can't make chocolate self saucing pudding or a plain chocolate cake as often I did, and I know this almost sounds silly, but I feel the pinch of this decision.
We keep talking with our kids about how products that are 'fair trade' mean that the people who worked for them get paid enough money to feed their family (this makes more sense to them than 'a living wage'). The kids tell visitors proudly that we have fair trade coffee, chocolate, some clothing, and that Mum has a pair of fair trade runners (much to my embarrassment). We are rich, we can choose to move chocolate from a cheap, whenever treat, to a special occasion treat.
And when my 7 year old wanted a chocolate cake for his birthday I knew it would be an under-appreciated , expensive, fair trade cake; that's what he wanted, and I knew that making it was also making a small quiet difference in the world, one that my conscience found life-giving.
You might like to look at Stop the Traffik, or Fair Trade Association for more information.
There is a Bible study you might like to use for some ideas from Stop the Traffik.
TEAR Australia's Kids 4 Kids kit "Lessons in Hope from Cambodia" is not about chocolate or fair trade but it is about about how kids in Cambodia are sometimes taken from their homes and forced to do dirty or dangerous work they don't want to do, the kit covers how TEAR's partner organisation CHO is helping to keep children safe through education. "Chann, Srey Leak and Heng live on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. Their families are very poor, so everyone - women, men and children - work hard to survive. In this Kids4Kids resource pack, you'll find out how Cambodia Hope Organisation is working to protect children from exploitation and strengthen community spirit." Ideal for primary aged children.
