Collection of tetra pack pouches at the dumpsites.
No matter how many times I told Dado Santos to leave his big sack of recovered recycled drink pouches at the bottom of our steep driveway and we would send down the pick-up to get his heavy sack. But no, Dado insisted on carrying that heavy sack up the driveway on his back by himself. He was making a statement, “look at me, he was saying, a poor uneducated jobless man turned recycler, collector and sanitizer of discarded drink pouches and here on my back is the evidence of my success”. Then he collects his hefty and fair-trade payment. That is at the heart of fair trade – just wage for good products.
These discarded drink pouches are recycled and sewn into super quality colorful and attractive back packs, rucksacks, shopping bags, purses, computer bags and every other bag you could think of. They sell all over the world and give sustainable work to more than fifty sewing families that have a good living, making them in their own homes.
They can now feed their families with plenty of healthy food, dress them well and parents stand tall and proud as they send their kids to school. The cycle of poverty has been broken. All this thanks to the good people around the world that buy Preda recycled products.
Despite all the worry and problems caused by an economic recession, one thing has not diminished and that is the commitment of the people who love fair-play, and a fair-go and dislike buying anything made by a company that gets rich on child labor or exploiting women in sweat shops or farms.
Preda Fair Trade saw the plight of small mango farmers over 15 years ago. The farm gate price was so low because there was a price fixing cartel. They only bought the best and biggest fresh mango fruit for export and the rest were left to rot. But a friend and partner found a way to dry the fruit and dried mangos had a terrific taste and everybody wanted to buy them. Preda fair-trade mangos were born.
Soon we were exporting tons of dried mangos to the fair-trader importers in Europe. They are the healthiest of all, a special secret Profood drying process gives them a long shelf life without using preservatives. So they are chemical-free and we even have unique great tasting dried mangos with no added sugar.
Preda and Profood were soon buying hundreds of tons of fresh mangos of all shapes and sizes and paying higher prices. The farmers were delighted, there were no rejects. They only wanted to sell to the Preda-Profood project and soon the members of the price fixing cartel were starved of mangos and had to offer higher and higher prices and compete with each other for a supply of mangos.
The cartel soon disintegrated and the price of mangos almost doubled and thousands of small farmers and their families were ecstatic. They too could stand proud and prosperous and send their children to school, well dressed with full stomachs and much more. Dire poverty was over for them. Preda Fair-Trade had scored again and continues to keep on scoring in the grim game against poverty and exploitation. Preda fair-trade dried mangos are in major quality supermarkets in the UK and Ireland. Support small farmers and ask for Preda dried mangos under the Forest Feast brand and have a taste of justice and take a bite out of crime as they say.
How can we be sure that a product is really a fairly-traded product and not made with child labor or sweat shop slaves? That’s where the new and upcoming IFAT Fair-trade label is essential. The International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) has the highest standard for certifying that an organization is truly doing fair trade and Preda is one of those. Look for the Preda name and IFAT, the only names you can trust to be truly fair trade. (Fr .Shay Cullen is a Columban Missionary, he can be contacted at: Preda Foundation P.O. Box 68, Olongapo City, Philippines. www.preda.net, www.preda.org)
