45,000 reasons to swap your choco eggs

Happy Easter everyone! In addition to the Christian religious significance to the Easter Holiday, many families plan easter egg hunts and fun spring related activities and crafts for their kids.  Chocolate has become a large part of the North American Easter tradition.

As consumers, we are able to vote with our wallets and families interested in "greening up their act" have several essential fundamentals to consider.  One of them is the social aspect of our consumer choices.  


So what does this have to do with Easter? C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E!!! YUM.  You can change lives by investing in buying Fair Trade chocolate this Easter.  It is typically 15-30% more expensive than conventional choices but you can use it as an adult treat and focus on crafts for your kids this Easter.   When I buy fair trade chocolate bars - they range in price from $4.00 to $7.00 for a 100g to 150g (3.5oz to 5.3oz).  I actually find they taste better and the extra few dollars I would have in my pocket is one take out tea/coffee a day out of my life.  A worthy exchange of extra change for the value it produces.  If you are new to the Fairtrade idea the following is some information for you and an inspiring video!

From the Fairtrade website
Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices, Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives.

Even though we don't intentionally mean to, sometimes our choices place barriers in the way of other people so they are unable to meet their needs.  Those needs might be something so simple that we often take for granted such as clean drinking water, fair wages, and access to education for our children.  It's very important to create conditions so people can meet their basic human needs. If they are unable to meet their basic needs, they will be solely focused on survival, unable to contribute any of their gifts to the world and will often have a much lower quality of life for themselves and their children.

Here's 45,000 reasons to consider switching to Fair Trade chocolate



In Australia/NZ buy your Fairtrade Easter treats at:
http://www.chocolatier.com.au/ourstores/OurStores.htm
www.lindsayandedmunds.com.au
http://www.lighthouse-ventures.com
http://www.aldi.com.au/ 
http://www.alterecopacific.com/wheretobuy.html 
http://cocolo.com.au/stockists/ 
http://www.oxfamshop.org.au/retail 

In USA and Canada buy your Fairtrade Easter Treats from:
http://www.fairtradefederation.org/
http://www.transfairusa.org/
http://www.equalexchange.coop/
http://www.transfair.ca/ 
http://www.tenthousandvillages.ca/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=pageFairTrade1&type=store
 
Tracy Lydiatt - B.Sc, M.Sc
The Green Families Guru
p.s. Remember you can do this, it start with one step and lasts a lifetime