• Shop in our store for fair-trade products.
• Green & Black’s organic chocolate recently announced it would source all of its cocoa through fair trade. With Kraft Foods’ recent acquisition of Cadbury, Green & Black’s parent company, some fair-trade organizations are concerned that Cadbury’s new ownership may jeopardize its commitment to ethical sourcing. However, Kraft Foods has publicly stated that it will honor Green & Black/Cadbury’s commitment to fair trade.

Valentine's Day is a time to get cozy with the ones we love, showering them with heart-warming gifts like flowers and chocolates. In fact, about 50 million pounds of chocolate candy will be sold during the week of Valentine's Day. Perhaps it's the belief that chocolate can coax your sweetheart into a state of bliss through its decadent, seductive qualities. Indeed, with more than 1,500 distinct flavor characteristics, chocolate is one of the most complex food compounds — you might even detect undertones ranging from blackberry to hazelnut to tangerine in your chocolate bar. But do you know where your chocolate comes from? And what about the flowers, one of the most sublime symbols of pure beauty, which encapsulates how much you appreciate your significant other — do you know who grows and picks those roses?

Currently, the $13 billion chocolate industry is heavily consolidated, with just Hershey's and M&M/Mars controlling two-thirds of the chocolate-candy market in the United States. While the vast majority, about 90 percent, of cocoa is grown on small family farms, giant chocolate companies pay so little for the cocoa that farmers resort to running their operations on cheap labor. Over two-thirds of the world's cocoa is produced in West Africa, with Cote d'Ivoire accounting for more than 40 percent of global production. Thousands of children in West Africa and other cocoa-producing regions are forced to work on these cocoa farms, with some children being trafficked into forced labor under the guise of an opportunity for a good job to support their families.

Harvesting cocoa is dangerous work with long hours. Children laboring on cocoa farms must cut cacao pods down from high branches with machetes, split them open, and scoop out the beans, while they are also exposed to harmful pesticides without the necessary protective equipment. What's more, the children who labor under these conditions are unable to attend school or to pursue other avenues for safe and sustainable work that could bring them and their families out of extreme poverty.

A similar picture emerges when it comes to flowers. Many of the roses and carnations grown in South America are exported to be sold in American florist shops. In many of the flower plantations in countries with big cut-flower industries, such as Colombia and Ecuador, pervasive problems include poor health and safety conditions (especially pesticide exposure), the use of child labor, sexual harassment, and targeting of union organizers.

When it comes to fighting for economic justice in the chocolate and floral industries, the most viable solution we have at the moment is fair trade. UUSC's colleague organizations Global Exchange and the International Labor Rights Forum have taken leadership on the issues of child labor in the cocoa industry and the rights of cut-flowers workers. Fortunately, these organizations, along with other human-rights organizations, faith-based groups, and fair-trade chocolate companies, are working to ensure that big companies that sell products like chocolate, coffee, and tea uphold their obligations under international labor standards.

So, what can you do to support fair trade and economic justice? International Labor Rights Forum has a resource on buying flowers [PDF] that gives suggestions on which ethical-sourcing certifications you should look out for, and Global Exchange is once again holding a National Valentine's Day of Action for teachers and religious educators to bring the topics of fair trade and child labor in the cocoa industry into the classroom.

To support UUSC's efforts to promote fair trade, you can shop for gifts, including bundles of fairly traded chocolate, tea, and pecans from Equal Exchange. Or, for a fun and delicious dessert activity, try a chocolate and coffee pairing inspired by Equal Exchange's recommendations of which fairly traded chocolate and coffee flavors best complement each other. No matter how you celebrate this Valentine's Day, making a personal commitment to fair trade is one way you can show someone what a gift of love means, by supporting the workers and producers behind your gifts.

© Sophia Paris/United Nations

• Donate to the UUSC/UUA Joint Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund
  
• Respond to our action alert:
  Urge International Debt Relief for Haiti
  
• FAQ about UUSC Disaster Response

Browsing the New York Times the other day, I came across this article, "Quake Ignores Class Divisions of a Poor Land." In it, Marc Lacey and Simon Romero make this basic argument:

_{"Earthquakes do not respect social customs. They do not coddle the rich. They know nothing about the invisible lines that in Haiti keep the poor masses packed together in crowded slums and the well-to-do high up in the breezy hills of places like Petionville."}

I beg to differ. Here is the thing...when a disaster strikes, Lacey and Romero have a point. It can hit anywhere, at anytime, and affect anybody. But that's where a disaster's inability to discriminate ends. In the press coverage immediately following the earthquake in Haiti, many news and relief organizations pointed out that the reason Haiti is such a large-scale disaster is because of the lack of infrastructure that exists in the country in the first place, and fundamentally, that's true. What this argument fails to mention is that existing structural inequalities, on top of poor infrastructure, magnifies the impact of the disaster on certain people. People's ability to rebuild after an earthquake, or a tsunami, or a cyclone — it's only as strong as their place in society beforehand.

Lacey and Romero continue:

_{President Rene Preval was the most vivid example of just how democratic natural disasters can be, his grand office at the presidential palace flattened and his home badly damaged.}

That is absolutely true. There is no doubt that everyone in Port-au-Prince is facing the impacts of heavy devastation. But, while he is an extreme example, the president of Haiti is also a perfect example of the discriminatory nature of disasters. Rene Preval can rebuild. He can access relief, he can access food and fresh water, and he can use the connections and finances he had before the disaster to rebuild his life after it.

This was true in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when wealthy homeowners found that the complexities of the insurance policies they held were almost insurmountable. But with time, patience, and a lot of lawyers and money, they could get their insurance claims fulfilled. Those with little before Katrina were completely left behind, their houses abandoned because they didn't have the means to take on the structural power barriers that marginalized them before the storm.

The truth is, disasters do discriminate. Disenfranchised members of society become more so, struggling to survive, let alone rebuild livelihoods. Inequalities that existed are merely magnified, forcing some people onto the edges of society. UUSC works to lessen those deep divides — work that is more complex than traditional relief efforts — but, fundamentally important in the effort to foster long-term change.

Assuming that disasters affect everyone in the same way is dangerous. It undermines relief efforts and deepens longstanding inequalities. So when an earthquake, or tsunami, or flood, strikes, existing divisions aren't "ignored"; they are magnified. Remembering this fact is the key to rebuilding.

In a powerful op-ed for the Cohasset Mariner, Reverend Jan Carlsson Bull asks the question, "In the wake of a disaster, what can we do?"

"What can we do?" Perhaps the first words to come out of our hearts after we gasped in horror at the suffering of our neighbors in Haiti. What can we do to help? Tremor follows tremor, and this morning as I write yet another shockwave has moved through this island nation, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

With our minds on Haiti and the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., those words that Dr. King spoke to a congregation assembled at the National Cathedral in our nation's capital on the Sunday before he was murdered resound for us today: "We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly." This past Sunday we sang a paraphrase of this, the words of Cecily Taylor: "Our world is one world: what touches one affects us all..."

We are affected; we are touched. We are family. What can we do? With 3.5 million people wandering amid the debris and over 100,000 dead and thousands unaccounted for, where do we begin?

Read the rest of the op-ed here [PDF]. Thanks to Reverend Carlsson Bull for this piece!

Here are some more things UU congregations and groups have been doing:

• Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• UU Congregation of the Palisades held an auction to raise money for our Haiti relief fund.
• First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• Michigan Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Network (MUUSJN) sent an  appeal to their network asking folks to give generously to our Haiti Relief Fund.
• Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Plattsburgh conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• First Parish UU Church in Portland, Maine, is planning to do a benefit concert in February to raise funds for our Haiti relief fund. 
• Boulder Valley UU Fellowship in Lafayette, Colo., conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• The organization European Unitarian Universalists made a special contribution to our Haiti relief fund.
• UU Church of Canton, N.Y., conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice posted an appeal for donations to our Haiti relief fund on their website.
• UU Congregation of Atlanta conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• UU Church of Chattanooga conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• UU Fellowship of Hendersonville, N.C., conducted a special collection for our Haiti relief fund.
• Emerson UU Church in Canoga Park, Calif., contributed a Sunday offering to our Haiti relief fund.

As I write this blog, meetings are being held in Copenhagen by diverse stakeholders to discuss issues around climate change. Meanwhile, the U.N. Independent Expert (IE) on the Human Right to Water has added her voice to the discussions by releasing a position paper titled "Climate Change and the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation." In the paper she speaks for the billion people worldwide who lack access to safe water and the 2.5 billion who lack access to sanitation.

So far, it seems the plight of these people has not been forefront on the minds of world leaders at Copenhagen. The IE therefore reminds the Conference of Parties-15 (COP-15) that "water is a key medium through which climate change impacts on human populations, society, and ecosystems, particularly due to predicted changes in its quality and quantity." She is worried that despite this obvious fact, "water has not been sufficiently considered in the climate change negotiations."

The IE's position paper remarkably demonstrates why it is very important for water and sanitation and the human rights obligations related to them to be top on the agenda of COP-15. Briefly, this is because climate change already impacts on the right to water and sanitation by causing floods, droughts, and changes in precipitation and temperature extremes. These changes impact the availability, quality, accessibility, and affordability of water and hence the human right to water in the following ways.

First, climate change increases the stress on water resources and intensifies the competition for water among different users. This affects the availability of water for personal and domestic uses. Second, increasing temperatures, changes in groundwater levels, floods, and droughts threaten water quality. Third, floods and drought will deteriorate existing water and sanitation infrastructure and affect accessibility of water. Lastly, increasing demand and competition over water as result of climate change will cause the price of water to rise and hence its affordability.

The IE notes that "the way that water is managed will be a critical component for the success of any efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change, in conformity with human rights obligations." She points out that "although climate change puts additional stress on water resources and reinforces the competition over limited resources, it does not render the realization of the human right to water and sanitation impossible." She advises governments to "set priorities in the way that basic needs are met" and to define a quantity of water sufficient for human dignity, life, and health.

Other measures she proposes include that governments ensure no discrimination in the distribution of water resources and services; that they undertake maximum efforts to realize the human right to water and sanitation within all available resources, and refrain from interfering with existing access; and that they ensure climate change intervention measures do not compromise safe, affordable, and acceptable water and sanitation in sufficient quantities for everyone.

We hope COP-15 is listening, and join hands with the IE in asking them to make water a priority in their negotiations and to recognize water as a human right in Copenhagen.

UUSC's second annual Rights Night, held Thursday, December 10, 2009, was a big success. On the occasion of the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), we honored pioneering activist Mel King. A crusader, educator, organizer, and entrepreneur, King has devoted his life to organizing and advocacy for anti-poverty and urban renewal causes.

King was presented with UUSC's Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award for his commitment to social justice and human rights. Long-time colleague, friend, and fellow pioneer Gus Newport introduced King, and Boston City Councilor Sam Yoon delivered an impassioned keynote connecting King's work with the values embodied in the UDHR. The evening was opened and closed with rousing performances by the vocal group Foxx.

Rights Night attendees were asked to take action for the Gulf Coast by asking their congressperson to support the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act. If you haven't had the chance to do so, you can do it online through our website.

UUSC thanks everyone who attended Rights Night 2009! We also extend special thanks to the staff of the Media Arts Center of Roxbury Community College for helping us make the evening a big success, and to Altman & Altman, LLP, for standing with UUSC a second consecutive year as corporate sponsor.

And last, UUSC is delighted to announce the winner of the Rights Night raffle — for sharing her e-mail address with us, Susan Klimczak of Boston is the proud owner of a UUSC Human Right to Water water bottle and a handsome 2010 planner.

Please mark your calendars for December 10, 2010 — we'll be back with the third annual Rights Night, on the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of the UDHR.

Read an article from the South End news about Rights Night.

UUSC partner the Center for Human Rights and the Environment (CEDHA - Argentina) has prepared for the climate change summit in Copenhagen with trainings and workshops for civil society and grassroots NGOs organized under the Climate Sustainability Platform. Demanding binding agreements, CEDHA and the other Platform organizers are presenting proposals to governments and NGOs about next steps on climate change.

CEDHA is working at the international level on negotiations, and with UUSC support, at the national and local level in Argentina. Through CEDHA's law clinic, students and staff are now working with legislators in Cordova to protect "strategic glaciers" from encroachment by mining development. The glaciers are the "tap" of the environment — the source of water for drinking and agriculture in Cordova. This model legislation is an innovative effort to reform existing environmental law to protect natural resources and human rights, such as the human right to water.

Please note: If the links don't' work — do not get frustrated — check back. The organizations are updating content daily!

Learn more about what UUSC is doing to advance climate justice!

While the official COP 15 (Conference of the Parties — of the Framework Convention on Climate Change) negotiations are underway in the Bella Center in Copenhagen (see streaming video on the web), representatives from grassroots organizations and social movements from around the world are lifting up the banner of climate justice.

UUSC partner APRN (Asia Pacific Research Network) is in Copenhagen participating inside the Bella Center as an accredited NGO, and in the alternative forums.

Maria Theresa Nera-Lauron, or, as we know her, "Tetet," presented to UUSC staff, members, and volunteers when we conducted a series of climate change round tables in July 2009. Tetet called today from an Internet café set up at the Bella Center and sends us this message:

There are lots of discussions among the climate justice activists here of course. There is not a hopeful outlook about getting anything substantial at the end of two weeks. At best we will get a political document, but not substantial and not binding. Of note — a few days ago — the Philippines government did not include our chief G77 negotiator in the delegation. A lot of things changed after Sec. Clinton visited the Philippines 3 weeks ago. The Sudanese government now acts as the leader of G77.

The Bella Center — I must say is a corporate "heaven"; the UN FCC negotiations, very corporate friendly. There is really very token participation of civil society and citizens generally, relegated to observing the process. There is not real participation by civil society. This shows us that we must go back to our countries and engage our people, and our government, so that we can have some semblance of participation on the ground in climate change negotiations as we go forward.

We want to tell the members and staff of UUSC — there is a really a need to develop southern voices at the climate talks. The voices of ordinary people are not being heard here. UUSC support — more than appreciated — enabled us to provide some support for national assemblies that are happening to adopt the people's protocol. You gave us some elbow room to carry out the work we felt was important. National assemblies are taking place now in:

• Hong Kong
• Nigeria
• Mozambique
• Ethiopia
• The Philippines
• Kenya
• Zimbabwe

Some of the participants from earlier national assemblies are already here, of people gathering to ratify, however symbolic, the people's protocol, is an effort to put southern voices in the formal negotiations. We are very grateful for UUSC to allow us to use the support as we saw necessary. We've been getting some good press here — there was much bad media coverage about potential riots, violent protests.

But in the last few days while we are here southern voices are being heard by the Danish people. We are bringing the message that we came to Copenhagen for solidarity. The People's Movement on Climate Justice is participating in the alternative forum outside the official negotiations, and we are participating where and when we can inside. Tomorrow will be the first of a small action outside the Bella Center — an informational picket. Watch for video and pictures on IndyMedia.dk and peoplesclimatemovement.net. We also remember Human Rights Day while we are here — Happy birthday human rights!