CONFERENCE ON ETHICAL COMMERCE

The FAIR TRADE FAIR

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Join us from Noon to 5pm ~ at the Municipal Building Plaza
on Allen Street in Downtown State College
COFFEE CUPPING and Fair Trade Organic Coffee Samples
~ Live Music ~ Vendors ~ Artisan Demonstrations ~

Conference Overview

On Friday, September 23, students, teachers, business and community leaders, and activists from around the region will converge at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on Penn State's University Park campus for a day of concurrent workshops to explore how globalization affects communities at the local level, here and abroad. How can we make trade fair and do business sustainably in a way that strengthens local economies while at the same time allowing us to be responsible global citizens?

Bringing fair trade home to our communities means creating local market interest and venues for fair trade products. Fair trade is unique in that it attempts to reach the poorest producers and connect them to caring buyers; it is a strategy for poverty aleviation that gives market access and a decent living wage to the most impoverished segments of farming and labor on a global scale. But fair trade and other forms of globalization need to be balanced with concern for building strong local and regional economies that support a right livelihood for ourselves and our neighbors. Striking this balance will require that we become informed about the issues and engaged in public discourse, not merely as "consumers" but as people who vote, run households, work, make products, share our talents, and care about our communities, other people, and the planet.

Workshop topics include poverty and social justice, environmental issues and human rights, local governance and alternative currencies, faith-based social action, and more.

To register, click here or call the School of Living at 814-353-0130

Speakers and Workshops

KEYNOTE ADDRESS:
BRINGING THE FAIR TRADE MOVEMENT HOME -- confirmed
Jonathan Rosenthal is a fair trade food industry pioneer with more than 20 years experience in the coffee and natural products industry. He designs and manages projects to create a more powerful and socially just fair trade system. He is a board member of the Ecologic Enterprise Venture Fund, and advisor to numerous fair trade organizations and companies and is co-founder and former Executive Director of Equal Exchange, a worker owned fair trade coffee company.

TRACK on INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND GLOBALIZATION

• DEMOCRACY, EARTH RIGHTS, AND THE NEXT ECONOMY
• Closing Keynote Address ~ Alanna Hartzog is director of Earth Rights Institute and is a board member of United for a Fair Economy. www.earthrights.net and www.faireconomy.org
  
• POVERTY AND THE COFFEE CULTURE
  Jennifer Chesworth is founder of Sombra Buena Organic Forest Products, a fair trade certified coffee company, and founder of Herbalists Without Borders. She has worked with farmers in Latin America helping design, facilitate, and teach training courses in cooperative development, organic certification, and fair trade market development.
• WTO AND GLOBAL TRADE AGREEMENTS
  Sajay Samuel is an instructor in the Smeal College of Business Administration at Penn State University.

TRACK on ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

• GOLD, GREED, AND NORTH AMERICAN MINING COMPANIES
  Grahame Russell is a human rights lawyer and global justice activist from Toronto. For 9 years, Grahame lived in Mexico and Central America, working on development and human rights issues. Since 1995, Grahame co-directs Rights Action (Derechos en Accion, www.rightsaction.org ) that raises funds for community-controlled development and human rights projects in Mexico, Central America and Haiti, and that carries out education and activism work in Canada and the US related to global human rights and development issues.
  
• HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE MURDER OF WOMEN IN GUATEMALA
  Roselyn Costantino is an associate professor of Spanish and Women's Studies at Penn State's Altoona Campus.

TRACK on STRENGTHENING LOCAL ECONOMIES

• LOCAL CURRENCIES: CATALYSTS FOR SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL ECONOMIES
• Susan Witt and Chris Lindstrom
  Susan Witt has served as executive director of the E. F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, Massachusetts since its founding in 1980. She created the SHARE micro-credit program, administers the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires, champions the use of local currencies, and actively serves her local community. Her essays on regional economics appear in a variety of books and publications.
  www.smallisbeautiful.org
  Chris Linstrom is the Special Projects Coordinator for the E. F.Schumacher Society. He organized the Society's June 2004 conference "Local Currencies in Twenty-First Century: Understanding Money,Building Local Economies, Renewing Community," and is currently coordinating two initiatives to implement local currencies in Berkshire County, Massachusettes and Columbia County, New York.
• CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE
  Ben Price is an activist with the Community Enviromental Legal Defense Fund www.celdf.org
  
• BUSINESS ALLIANCE FOR LOCAL LIVING ECONOMIES
  The Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia.

TRACK ON ETHICAL COMMERCE AND THE FAITH-BASED COMMUNITY

• IRTF
  The Interreligious Task Force on Central America is a Cleveland-based, grassroots organization promoting justice in Latin America.
• National Resources and Organizations for Local Efforts
  Michael Sheridan is coordinator of the Fair Trade Program for Catholic Relief Services
• Toolkit for Promoting Ethical Commerce and Fair Trade in our Local Communities -- Panel Discussion combining faith based and community grassroots practical action.

TRACK ON MARKETING AND PROMOTING FAIR TRADE:

• TEN THOUSAND VILLAGES
  Doug Dirks is marketing director for this Pennsylvania-based Fair Trade Store and outreach organization www.tenthousandvillages.com confirmed
• UNITED STUDENTS FOR FAIR TRADE

To register, click here or call the School of Living at 814-353-0130

Conference Schedule

Friday, September 23
Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, Penn State University Park Campus

8:30-9:30am -- Registration and Coffee

9:30-10:35 -- Introductions and Keynote Address
Fair Trade: A Vision for the Future ~ five minutes of introductory remarks
JONATHAN ROSENTHAN ~ Bringing the Fair Trade Movement Home
Frizell Hall

10:40am-12:00pm -- Workshop Session 1
* Poverty and the Coffee Culture
* National Resources and Organizations for Local Efforts
* Local Currencies: Catalysts for Sustainable Regional Economies
* United Students for Fair Trade

12:00-1:00 -- Lunch Break on the Plaza

1:00-2:20 -- Workshop Session 2
* Gold, Greed, and North American Mining Companies
* Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE):
The Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia
* WTO and Global Trade Agreements
* Toolkit for Promoting Ethical Commerce and Fair Trade in our Local Communities
-- A Panel Discussion

2:30-3:50 -- Workshop Session 3
* Ten Thousand Villages
* Corporations Are Not People
* The Interreligious Task Force on Central America
* Human Rights and the Murder of Women in Guatemala

4:00-5:00 - DEMOCRACY, EARTH RIGHTS, AND THE NEXT ECONOMY
Closing Address -- Alanna Hartzog

To register, click here or call the School of Living at 814-353-0130

Saturday, September 24
On Allen Street in Downtown State College, PA

11:00am -- Exhibitors arrive, Allen Street
11:00am-1:30 -- "Cupping" Fair Trade Organic Coffees
A Public Open House at the State College Municipal Plaza

12:00-5:00pm -- Fair Trade Fair
Vendors, live Music (until 6pm), Globalization Speak-Out

Registration Information

REGISTRATION: $50 ( $35 students ).
After September 8: $65 ( $50 students ).

Registration Includes a Local Foods Lunch, also serving fair trade coffee and tea.

Make checks payable to:
The School of Living, 215 Julian Woods Lane, Julian PA 16844

Please print out this page and provide the following information with your registration payment: [NOTE: we do not and will not sell or give out your personal information to anyone, for any reason, at any time.]

NAME:

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Getting There

The Penn State University Park Campus is located at the geographical center of Pennsylvania. Access to the campus is available by car, bus, and air.

For directions to Penn State visit:
http://www.campusmaps.psu.edu/print/pdf/pa2sc.pdf

For a local area map visit:
http://www.campusmaps.psu.edu/print/pdf/vicinity.pdf

For a map of the Penn State University Park Campus visit:
http://www.campusmaps.psu.edu/print/pdf/main2005.jpg

For a printable letter-sized version of the Campus map visit:
http://www.campusmaps.psu.edu/print/pdf/main2005.pdf

For an index to the Campus map visit:
http://www.campusmaps.psu.edu/print/pdf/main2005text.jpg
On the Campus Map and Index, Pasquerilla Spiritual Center
is building number 136 in quadrant B-3

Numberous Hotels are within easy walking distance (less than 1 mile) or a short drive from the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, see http://hotel-guides.us/pennsylvania/state-college-pa-hotels.html

Please Plan to Attend Our Fair Trade Fair in Downtown State College on Saturday, Sept. 24 ~ noon - 6pm