Dear Friends,
I am proud to announce our new partnership between NYSUT and the Fair Trade Schools USA Campaign. The Fair Trade Schools campaign provides locals and individual educators an opportunity to collaborate with students to promote awareness and understanding of the fair trade movement in schools campuses and communities.
At this time, there are only a handful of schools and campuses participating from New York State in this national effort. With your help, I know we can help support and expand this initiative in a meaningful way while also helping to enhance the lives of farmers, workers and artisans.
The campaign can be used as both a social justice teaching opportunity as well as an opportunity for you to engage the members of your local union. There are materials, resources and contests readily available for you to use on the Fair Trade Schools campaign website. In addition, there are also valuable resources for K-12 schools and college campuses.
Please review the materials provided here in the Fair Trade Schools Toolkit. The toolkit is designed to help you deliver specific information to describe the campaign in greater depths and to provide for the vision of this crusade.
Please take a moment to visit the Fair Trade Schools website, fairtradecampaigns.org, where you will be able to access additional links, resources, videos and materials.
I encourage you to commit to this campaign and forward the toolkit to a colleague that may also be interested in this important endeavor. Your support will empower workers and communities around the world to boost themselves out of poverty.
In Solidarity,
Paul Pecorale
NYSUT Vice President