A sip of hot morning tea… have you ever thought about how it is made? Who are the people manually processing the coffee beans  that you may be drinking as you read this text?

More often than not, it is a mother who, in order to feed her children, spends hours in a farm field. It is also the woman who wants to pay for the treatment of her elderly parents, so she sews your T-shirt. Behind every single thing you buy, there is a specific person.

The 13th of May is Fair Trade day. What is Fair Trade? It’s all about decent wages for workers, safe and respectful trade practices, fair prices and adequate social conditions.

From every cup of coffee drunk, only a small part of the profit reaches the worker. The salary is not even enough to meet the basic needs of themselves and their family.

In Burkina Faso, where almost 50% of the population lives on less than $1.90 a day, we have been running a project to support local entrepreneurship for years. We have set up a cooperative where we provide jobs and prepare more than 50 women to become seamstresses. We have built a mill that grinds grain from the fields of the families we support. A vegetable garden feeds the families but also provides produce for sale.

Today, we encourage you to make a benevolent purchase in our charity shop. Every product you find there has been made with respect for Fair Trade principles. With just the purchase of one Fair Trade-certified T-shirt, we can provide tools for a garden in Burkina Faso for those in need. One such set for the people of Gourcy living in extreme poverty holds the promise of a new start and the life they dream of.