Fair Trade Music and Art
The Fair Trade Coffee Roaster that I became involved with had an amazing mural in its cafe. It came into existence when a Mexican artist who was a part of a coffee producing cooperative in Chiapas made an inquiry about English lessons. JustUs! Coffee is based in a quaint university town and they made the offer of providing the artist with travel and accommodation and arranging his language instruction, etc., in exchange for a commissioned work of art.
Larry’s Beans is a coffee company that recognized the value of the music that was being made by some of the farmers that supplied them with coffee. Larry went down to Nicaragua with some recording equipment and he is now selling CDs back in the US with all the proceeds going back the the Nicaraguan coffee producers.
I checked out their store and the CDs are out of stock, but they have lots of coffee as well as books and t-shirts.
Calabash Music is a fair trade music company. They have lots of free music on the website to help you whet your appetite. One of my favorite genres is soukous.
