Archive for 2007

As time touring CRS programs across Ghana wrapped up, our delegation got noticeably excited about meeting the cocoa farmers of Kuapa Kokoo. Although everyone was enthusiastic about all they had seen and learned in the upper west, upper east, and northern regions of Ghana, as we turned toward the Ashanti region, one person summed it [...]

Read the entry: What about the Chocolate? →

All my fellow travelers will tell you how wonderful it has been to visit a variety of CRS programming. From peace centers, to youth groups, to nutrition programs, we’ve grown in our respect for CRS professionalism, our appreciation to CRS donors, and our desire to be of some use to the people of Ghana. We [...]

Read the entry: Weaving Baskets and Connecting Dots →

I, Jackie, would like to turn over the reigns of this blog to Steve for the day. He is the winner of the Raise Money Right chocolate selling contest. He and his mom are on the delegation and have been great members of the team. Steve’s mom is a nurse and [...]

Read the entry: Tap Water Turns the Tide by Steve White →

Lots of our time on this trip is spent in 4WD vehicles traveling from place to place, and we are not even reaching the remotest areas of Ghana where CRS works. The fact is, with the exception of cold showers and occasional electricity outages we are having a rather easy trip, all things considered. Each [...]

Read the entry: Results Not Found →

Our 10 person delegation left Accra by plane and arrived in Tamale, where our first stop was Nyohini Orphanage, a beneficiary of the CRS Safety Net program. In Ghana, where nearly a third of the population lives in extreme poverty, children are sometimes abandoned or lose their parents to disease. Orphanages provide a [...]

Read the entry: Itsy Bitsy Spider →

After mass today, the delegation went to visit an orphanage in Tema, outside Accra, run by the Missionaries of Charity, the Religious Order often known through the modest but influential work of Mother Teresa. The orphanage provides comfort, food and medical care to some twenty abandoned children. The Mother Superior of the congregation explained that [...]

Read the entry: The Legacy of Mother Teresa →

The Raise Money Right delegation is on its way to Ghana! We had a mostly uneventful trip to Amsterdam and are eager to get on our second leg to Accra, Ghana. “We” are those involved in the Fair Trade chocolate contests that CRS organized last year.
Elizabeth Cole from St. Austin’s Parish in Austin, [...]

Read the entry: Not quite Accra, but we are officially on our way! →

On my morning commute today, I experienced some rare moments of silence. There were no traffic jams for me to jay-walk through and few subway riders to jostle me. Not a single horn honked this morning! The lazy days of summer are really here in the Baltimore-Washington DC area, with many folks [...]

Read the entry: Lazy days of summer are almost over →

More than 2 billion reasons to act now.
A few years ago, after I joined CRS but before I started working with the Fair Trade Program, I was involved in an event at Loyola College here in Baltimore focused on world hunger.  In preparing comments for the event, I wrote that “Hunger is an intrinsic and instrumental evil.” 
I [...]

Read the entry: It Is Hard to Work When You Are Hungry →

Chocolate is quite a daily habit for many of us in the United States. For a few years now, many advocates such as Global Exchange and the International Labor Rights Fund have called on the chocolate industry to reform its labor practices to better protect children. Reports from the US State Department, the [...]

Read the entry: Can Fair Trade Help Increase Peace in West Africa? →