Fair Trade in Peru!

The View from Peru: Fair Trade at K’Antu!

Hola! I am writing from Lima, the capital of Peru. After leaving Uruguay last week, I came here to support my colleagues in our Peru program as they develop a strategic plan for their economic justice programming for the next few years. I am part of a team of CRS staff members from outside Peru who have been brought in to provide external “expert” perspectives on the themes that our Peru program has identified as priorities for the future, including economic justice. Beginning this afternoon, I will have six long days of meetings with CRS donors, staff, partners and people who participate in CRS-supported projects here. Meantime, I took advantage of a weekend in Lima to check out the local Fair Trade scene.

The thriving Barranco district of Lima is home to some of the capital’s best-preserved colonial architecture, great restaurants, a serene little plaza and a stone path that winds down to the beach at one of the city’s preferred surfing spots. And now, it is also home to K’Antu, a Fair Trade cafe, store and cultural center just steps off the plaza. K’Antu serves Fair Trade coffee grown by some of the country’s leading Fair Trade coops, sells beautiful Fair Trade handcrafts, offers a small selection of non-fiction books that address the realities of contemporary Peru, and convenes “conversatorios” — talks by academics and others that help tourists and locals alike better understand the forces that keep more than 10 million Peruvians in poverty and show how Fair Trade represents a source of hope for a growing number of them.

K’Antu is a joint effort by more than one dozen local organizations, including many of our partners (as I mentioned in one of my posts from Montevideo, our Church partners in Peru, Caritas Peru and CEAS, have taken an active role in promoting Fair Trade) and our partners’ partners (the craft and coffee cooperatives that sell their products to A Greater Gift and the companies that participate in our Coffee Program). K’Antu is part of a growing number of domestic Fair Trade initiatives in countries where Fair Trade products are created. Not too long ago, Mexico became the first country in the world that both produces and sells Fair Trade Certified items. And feasibility studies are showing that more and more Fair Trade ”producer countries” are also viable “consumer countries.” I, for one, find this an extremely exciting development, since it creates powerful opportunities for solidarity in countries like Peru and Mexico, where the contrast and distance between a growing class of elites and an enormous number of people living in extreme poverty is striking.

When I arrived at K’Antu, I struck up a conversation with the manager, Soledad, and told her what I do for a living. In no time, we had identified a handful of mutual acquaintances in the Fair Trade movement in Peru and the United States. As we talked, she was working to adjust the grind on a new grinder at the coffee bar. I helped her figure out the unfamiliar device, and volunteered to be the “guinea pig” (which also happens to be a traditional source of protein in the Andes, but that’s another story) to sample several cups of espresso and help her identify the optimal setting. After a few shots, I started getting dizzy and begged off. She wouldn’t take any money for the coffee, insisting that I was doing her a favor (now that’s a Fair Trade!), so I feel compelled to thank her here…Thank you, Soledad!

Please make the effort to visit K’Antu if you are ever lucky enough to make it to Peru as a tourist or on business.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 1st, 2007 and is filed under Coffee, Fair Trade . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Fair Trade in Peru!

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