Global Gifts

A Student Trip to Ecuador To See ‘Fair Trade’ in Action

First Posted: 1/9/13 12:24 PM EDT Updated: 1/9/13 12:24 PM EDT
Originally published October/November 2012

BY JANET MANDELSTAM Mary Embry has been a fair trade advocate “for more than a dozen years,” she says. She includes fair trade principles in the course on sustainability that she teaches at IU’s Department of Apparel Merchandising and Interior Design, and she serves on the board and volunteers at Global Gifts, Bloomington’s fair trade store located on the east side of the downtown Square. In June she led a small group of fellow advocates on a trip to Ecuador to see those principles in action. The principles include, she says, “empowering marginalized people, especially women, and paying a fair price to the producers, one that covers the cost of their materials and helps sustain their existence.” Fair trade also [...]

Continue reading "A Student Trip to Ecuador To See ‘Fair Trade’ in Action"

Filed Under: Fashion/Shopping Tagged With: Global Gifts, Janet Mandelstam, Linda Xiong, Mary Embry

Hannah Fidler:  Advocate for Social Justice

First Posted: 8/22/12 03:56 PM EDT Updated: 8/22/12 03:56 PM EDT
Originally published June/July 2012

BY MANDY CLARKE Boyfriends, shopping, prom…. When you think of a 17-year-old girl, the first thoughts that come to mind probably aren’t volunteer work or fair trade. However, for Hannah Fidler, who thinks both locally and globally, they are a main concern. Fidler’s interest in fair trade and international social justice issues began while in elementary school when she volunteered to help with sales of fair trade items at St. Thomas Lutheran Church. This led to an independent study project on the subject in seventh grade. “I was becoming very passionate about social justice issues and wanted to know how fair trade fit into that picture,” she explains. In 2009, as a 14-year-old ninth grader, Fidler was one of the [...]

Continue reading "Hannah Fidler:  Advocate for Social Justice"

Filed Under: Our Town Tagged With: City of Bloomington Volunteer Network, Dave Debikey, Fair Trade Bloomington, Global Gifts, Hannah Fidler, Hilltop Garden and Nature Center, Lynae Sowinski, Mandy Clarke

Global Gifts: Selling Crafts That Promote Fair Trade

First Posted: 7/16/12 03:36 PM EDT Updated: 7/16/12 03:39 PM EDT
Originally published October/November 2011

BY ELISABETH ANDREWS Each semester, when IU Department of Apparel Merchandising & Interior Design professor Mary Embry would bring up fair trade at the end of her international commerce class, students would react with shock and confusion about the conditions of modern manufacturing. “They’d say, ‘We are soon-to-be graduates going into this industry, and you’re telling us we are making the world a poorer and worse place? Why didn’t someone say something sooner?’” she recalls. Hoping to make students more aware of fair labor practices and to offer the broader Bloomington community an opportunity to promote fair trade, she persuaded the director of the Indianapolis nonprofit Global Gifts to set up a store here in town. Opened in 2009 at [...]

Continue reading "Global Gifts: Selling Crafts That Promote Fair Trade"

Filed Under: Fashion/Shopping Tagged With: David Debikey, Elisabeth Andrews, Global Gifts, Mary Embry, nonprofit, Shannon Zahnle