The Keene State College Fair Trade Club (FTC) is going to Ecuador this May, making them the first club to travel internationally.
Trip organizers Laura Heavey and Katy McLaughlin, along with the e-board and members of FTC, have worked for a long period of time to make this trip happen.
Though the trip has been moved back several months, the decision was made based off safety and feasibility.
“We thought that moving it to May would lessen that pressure and would ensure a safer and better trip and ensure participants having a better feeling about the trip just overall,” Heavey said.
The Ecuador trip has been an idea that the FTC has been dreaming for three years since its foundation by the current e-board members.
“It has been a goal since we started,” president of the club, Kelsey Bumsted, said.
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“Our biggest piece is closing the gap between students and the producers, because there is a lot that you can learn from a distance about fair trade like in books, articles and videos, but it’s totally different when you’re there experiencing it,” she added.
The FTC is working with the non-profit Runa Foundation. Finding this foundation fell upon the group by their annual “Fair Fairs.”
Runa also has a subset in tea production.
It is Runa Tea that the FTC will be working with and for. “Last November during our third annual Fair Trade Fair, we invited Runa— a representative from Vermont for Runa Tea came down and actually brought samples and set up a table,” Bumsted said.
“We invited our purchasing manager to try the samples and see what he thought to see if he could add the product into our school. He really liked it, so that’s how it got into our Lloyd’s café,” she continued.
It is this close connection that made Runa Tea such an ideal organization to work with for FTC.
Runa Tea is in the Llyod’s Marketplace and has its benefits beyond being fair trade. “It’s basically the same caffeine as coffee but it’s tea and it’s healthier,” Heavey said.
According to McLaughlin, the best part is that students who go on this Ecuador trip will be personally involved in the planting and harvesting process of the main ingredient, guayusa, that directly leads into production and consumption.
“The tea company harvests guayusa which is in that area of Ecuador. So we will go down there and work with the farmers who harvest this guayusa plant, and we will get a chance to harvest it with them and see what the work is like that they do. We will get that experience and hands-on learning about fair trade. And, we will be living in intern houses for a couple of nights, so we will be together with our group, but then we will go and stay in home stays so we actually get to experience the communities and their homes,” McLaughlin said.
Going to Ecuador is non-exclusive to the FTC, because they believe that anyone should have the opportunity to experience and learn about a concept that may not be well known.
Bumsted added that education and having fun are important factors of going on this trip.
“If you’re really interested in going, we want to see people who are excited in being there too. It’s less of picking up a shovel and doing work and more of understanding and experiencing,” Bumsted said.
Heavey reflected back on when she and McLaughlin first got involved with the FTC.
“We had no idea what fair trade was- and through that [club meeting] we found out how it helps communities in third-world countries, education and a lot of aspects which people don’t normally think about,” she said. “They think it’s just food and drinks but it is things like marketing, business, micro finance, literally anything you can think of which is why our members are a diverse amount of majors and minors,” Heavey said.
The FTC will be putting out an info session and applications are hanging on the door of their office on the second floor in room 241 of the student center.
Applications can be drop off there by the deadline– Monday, November 4—and students will know by that Wednesday.
Meetings for the FTC are Wednesdays at 8 in room 308 of student center.
Nicole Carrobis can be contacted at ncarrobis@keene.edu