Trade As One

Public information announcement: You may need to stock pile our delicious fair trade chocolate now because a) Mother’s Day is coming and b) since we don’t like you to receive melted chocolate in your orders, we cease to sell chocolate over the summer months. We start to ship again in September.

Here’s a recipe for What to Eat? Wednesday to encourage you to try these delicious cookies using several fair trade ingredients that we sell. The Georges tested this recipe last night and the lack of any cookies left this morning is all the evidence you should need.

Really quick and easy chocolate cookies

Recipe from Linda Collister’s Divine: Heavenly Chocolate Recipes with a Heart

The items marked by * are available from Trade as One.

Makes 24 cookies
Pre-heat the oven to 350F/180C

• 3.5oz bar of fair trade Divine chocolate (milk or dark chocolate, or your best flavor)*
• 1/2 cup walnut pieces (or chopped pecans or hazelnuts)
• 9 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup fair trade mascobado sugar*
• 1/2 cup fair trade cane sugar*
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 2/3 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Prepare two lightly greased baking trays.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces, mix with the chopped nuts and set aside until needed. Put the butter in a medium pan and melt gently. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sugars using a wooden spoon. When thoroughly mixed, beat in the egg. Add the oats and mix in, followed by the flour, baking soda, and vanilla extract. Add the chocolate and nuts and mix thoroughly.

Scoop the mixture onto the trays, using a heaped tablespoon of the mixture for each cookie, spacing them well apart to allow for expansion. Bake in the heated oven for about 15 minutes until lightly browned. Cool the cookies on the trays for a minute then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container and eat within a week.

Yesterday we posted about the shea butter co-operative in Togo.

Inevitably, however, demand for employment is higher than Alaffia can meet. Everyday there are a dozen women waiting at the cooperative door, asking to be added to the cooperative. This is emotional and frustrating, and even elderly women beg for a chance to work there. These fair trade jobs are so valuable to the women and their communities. Everyday, the staff have to explain that the cooperative has a recruitment process, and that the cooperative can only add what it can afford. Early in 2012, a registration day was held for women interested in joining the cooperative. This day was heartbreaking; while several hundred women expressed interest in joining, they will only be able to add 47 women this year. But, year on year, this number has been growing- and it’s all because people like you are becoming more aware and choosing to buy great products that benefit both people and planet.

Remember to check out Trade as One’s Alaffia products here and tell us what you think of them!

During March we are updating you about the work of Alaffia who make the body-care products that we sell at Trade as One. These stories are a strong reminder that our everyday choices have big consequences in parts of the world we may never see.

Click ‘like’ to show your support for buying products that are a force for good in the world, and read on to hear more of what Alaffia are up to in Togo, West Africa.

Most Alaffia products use shea butter which comes from the oil extracted from shea nuts. This is a traditional crop and skill, and is a sustainable, indigenous practice that allows women to stay in their local communities while passing the skills onto the next generation. The Alaffia Shea Butter Co-operative members earn fair wages for their skills and knowledge. With growing world demand for shea butter, the traditional knowledge and culture of shea butter and the involvement of women is threatened. First, nuts are being exported and oil extraction is taking place outside West Africa. Second, where oil extraction is happening in West Africa, there is increasing pressure to replace traditional techniques with mechanization. In both cases, traditional knowledge is not valued, and women are losing control of their resource.

It was in direct response to these changes that Alaffia started a Shea Butter Cooperative in Sokodé, Togo in 2003. The group creates economic opportunity for women who are denied access to education and whose skills and knowledge are undervalued. The work maintains centuries of West African knowledge by the traditionally handcrafting of shea butter. Since women hold the historical, traditional knowledge of this craft, they make up 99% of the members. The funds generated through the sale of the natural, unrefined and handcrafted shea butter support stable, fair salaries and go towards alleviating poverty and fostering gender equality in these communities. More news coming tomorrow!

At Trade as One we work with several outstanding producers doing great work on the front-lines of poverty. Buying products from these producers enables them to carry on making a difference and an impact. Alaffia is a producer of ours based in Togo, West Africa who source and supply unrefined shea butter for a wide range of delectable, all-natural body care products. Alaffia was founded as a way to alleviate poverty in West Africa and help communities remain self sustainable through the fair trade of indigenous resources. We’re excited to share some of the story of Alaffia with you and to encourage you to check out our Alaffia body-care products.

Right now, in the first week of March, Alaffia are opening a brand new coconut co-operative in Togo which will start out employing around 130 women. This co-operative will be harvesting fair trade coconut oil and providing much needed dignified jobs to disadvantaged women in a very poor area of Togo.

These are body-care and beauty products that you can be proud to use- ones that treat you, while also specifically helping the poor and marginalized in Togo, and doing that in a way that is sustainable and empowers and improves both local communities and the natural environment. It’s hard not to be impressed with what they do!

Follow these stories on Facebook:

Alaffia has lots of exciting projects going on and we are going to be telling these stories throughout March on FaceBook so please like us on Facebook so that you can follow the stories, and benefit from some exclusive Alaffia offers and give-aways! What’s not to ‘like’?!

We’ll be talking about Alaffia’s co-operatives, a new secondary school that Alaffia has just built in the town of Kouloumi, a women’s health project relating to female circumcision, a pre-natal care project, a bicycle and desk distribution scheme, and a plan to plant 8000 trees this year in Togo. And all because people like you choose to buy and use their great products. There is so much to tell, and a huge amount of impact and positive change that is possible, because of dignified, sustainable jobs for those who need them most.

What can you do to help projects like these? It’s not a tough assignment! Treat yourself to some Alaffia products, and consider switching your regular body lotion or soap to Alaffia to do some good to others while treating your skin at the same time.

Remember to like us on Facebook to see all of the upcoming Alaffia stories!

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. If you do one thing, watch a simple one minute video that tells the story of Sany in Cambodia – sold as a young girl where she suffered unspeakable abuse, eventually freed and given a new dignified life with a meaningful job.

If you have seen the documentary Nefarious you will know the sort of abuse behind Sany’s statement “When I was young I was sold.” As she slightly chokes in saying those words you get a half-second glimpse into a world of pain that no one should ever endure.

We are not all called to be fiery-eyed campaigners and activists. We can’t all travel the world fighting injustice. Of course we can and should give to organizations that do that, but at Trade as One we believe that justice and compassion is best exercised when it invades us close to home and gets built into our daily lives - when the bag we carry our laptop in gives a job to Sany (http://tradeasone.com/producers/stopstart/), when the rice we eat keeps families together in rural Thailand and prevents migration to the urban slums (http://tradeasone.com/producers/alter_eco/), when the jewelry we give as a gift tells the story of a woman rescued from forced prostitution (http://tradeasone.com/producers/nightlight/). Whatever it is that you can do in this movement to set people free, let’s do it.