What is Fair Trade? In the conventional world trade system, small-scale farmers and artisans in 3rd world countries often receive only a tiny percentage of the final market value of their products.

In fact, their return is frequently less than the cost of their efforts. The result: families go hungry, children are forced to quit school, communities lack the basic infrastructures to support health and prosperity, and generation after generation is caught in a cycle of poverty. (One quarter of the world’s population lives in absolute poverty.)

Fair Trade, in contrast, fosters equitable and direct trading partnerships between producers and consumers, in order to sell products directly to international buyers at a fair price. Thus, Fair Trade promotes sustainable solutions to poverty reduction, which takes into account community development, gender equity and protections for the environment.

The Bridge, a Fair Trade merchant, carries coffee from Grounds for Change, a Pacific Northwest roastery specializing in socially responsible and environmentally sustainable coffee. We also carry a variety of Fair Trade teas.

The Bridge works with a community of spoonmakers from San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. Over the course of a few years, the spoonmakers have become more sophisticated in their work, producing wooden spoons and other kitchen utensils in an ever-increasing variety of sizes and styles. Customers love them.

We also represent the beadworkers from a Guatemalan village called Santiago, quite close to the spoonmakers’ village. Despite being greatly impacted by the mudslides that hit the area in late 2005, the supply of beautifully beaded necklaces, bracelets, book marks and key chains keep coming our way, again more sophisticated with each order.

The Bridge also carries Maasai products from Kenya: bracelets, hand-painted leather bookmarks, greeting cards made from banana leaf, ebony spoons, and more.

Whenever you are looking for a unique gift for yourself or someone special, and you desire to help better the world in the process, please consider purchasing Fair Trade goods. You will be helping people to help themselves and their communities while obtaining a gift that will be a continual reminder of your appreciated support.