News Archive: February 2005

February 9

February 16

February 23

Click Drive
February 14 - March 31
Make www.povertyfighters.com your homepage and register to click on behalf of Brown University. From February 14 - March 31, please go to this website and click twice a day.

Please click on the sponsor stories to make sure your clicks count!!!

Click drive efforts continue: we will be dormslipping and also visiting computer labs to encourage participation. Contact Aaron_Glieberman@brown.edu if you want to help.

Sweatshops
A delegation of Oxfam, SLA, and BSAS met with Brown Bookstore representative to discuss the expiration of the Multi-Fibre Agreement and our Code of Conduct for apparel industry. For more information, contact Catherine_Panella@brown.edu.

Darfur
Meeting will be held this Friday, February 25, 1:00pm, in East Side Pockets. Please come with ideas for fundraisers/events. Contact Emily_Savin@brown.edu for more information.

Summer Opportunities
Please contact oxfam@brown.edu asap if you are interested in a summer program, so that we can help provide funding.

Women and Fair Trade: A Leadership Development Exchange to Chiapas, June 2005. (for more info: www.mexicosolidarity.org)

2005 Youth Delegation to Ghana, West Africa (contact: dependentcoarising@yahoo.com)

Internship Opportunities with the Community Agroecology Network (for more info: http://communityagroecology.net/internships.htm)

Global Week of Action for Trade Justice: April 10-16
Next week we will create more concrete plans for this week of action. Please come with ideas for events, people/organizations we should contact, publicity ideas, etc.

February 16

Lots of news from tonight's meeting. Here we go!

• The Equal Exchange Valentine's Day free trade chocolate sale was a big success -- they sold out! Way to go on the publicity, Oxfam.
• Emily Benjamin is heading up a group to bring local foods to Brown. There's a meeting March 1 at 8:30 in the Urban Environmental Lab, which is across from the Shell Station on Angell. It's an organizational meeting. Eventual ideas include a letter-writing campaign, and working closely with Brown Dining to get its food from local farmers. Contact Emily_Benjamin@ for more information, or just show up at that meeting.
• The Click Drive started Monday! Go to povertyfighters.com every day and click twice. Tell all your friends. Be annoying. This is important. Get the word out! Stuff:
  • Send mass messages to your friends. Use the facebook.
  • Can we get the facebook to advertise for us? It's being looked into.
  • We're going to put lots of slips in lots of computer labs. Permission on some of them is pending, but let Stella know if you're willing to help with that.
  • We talked about tableslipping, but decided that's low-priority -- best to get people at their computers.
  • Ditto for a BDH letter, editorial, ad, something. Talk to Stella if you have ideas.
  • We'll probably be on Morning Mail soon. Hopefully.
• We're looking at a pizza-and-movie party. And backrubs! We're talking about two weeks from now, details to be determined. Tell Stella your movie suggestions.
• Global Week of Action is April 10-15. It's all about fair traide and good stuff like that -- we want to work with other student groups. Talk to Nicole Summers to get involved.
• The amazing and awesome Hourglass Marble project needs an engineer to make it happen. Anyone know any? Mark is on the hunt.
• Students Against Sweatshops is sponsoring a speaker in March, and needs help publicizing, etc. Contact Catherine_Panella@.
• There's really great information on the Oxfam America website. Stella suggests that people look through some of their suggestions and come up with ideas to present at our next meeting for how best to help the world. If you're interested, contact Stella. And check out No Dirty Gold, Fair Trade Coffee, Make Trade Fair, and the Agriculture Campaign.
• Aaron is still working on figuring out how to get the food that Brown dining halls waste somewhere useful. The first hurdle is to find a distribution network for the food. He's on the job. That guy is awesome.

February 9 News

• The first Oxfam meeting of the semester was Wednesday 2/9 at 9pm.  Future Oxfam meetings will be held weekly, on Wednesdays from 9:00pm - 10:00pm, in the Hourglass Cafe (Underground of Faunce). Please let me know if you have a conflict with this time and we can try to rearrange things.  Here's a summary of the meeting and our plans for the semester:
  
  Feb. 14 (Monday) -- Fair Trade chocolate sales and Equal Exchange presentation
  
  Monday, February 14, 2005
  The Blue Room
  Faunce House, Brown University
  
  11:00am-3:00pm, Valentine Sale:  Purchase an Equal Exchange Fairly Traded Choclate Bar for your Valentine.
  12:30-1:30pm, Fair Trade Talk: Equal Exchange and The Blue Room invite community members to join us and Abel (from the Dominican Republic) for a discussion about fair trade, child labor, and the lives of Dominican cocoa farmers.
  
  Feb. 14 - March 31 -- Click Drive
  
  The Oxfam America Collegiate Click Drive is a national competition among students and alumni across the country to generate the most charitable donations on behalf of their school by clicking every day on PovertyFighters.com's front-page. All around the world, to help fund self-employment loans for the very poor. These "micro-loans" enable people in dire poverty across the globe, especially women, to start small businesses so they and their families can permanently rise out of poverty. Every time you click, our sponsors provide 25¢.
  Contact me Stella you would like to help with publicity.
  
  April 10 - 16 -- Global Week of Action on Trade Justice
  
  We plan to collaborate with the Brown Environmental Action Network, Student Labor Alliance, Sustainable Food Initiative, and others.  Please contact Stella if you would like to help plan this event.
  
  April 22 -- Earth Day
  
  other opportunities -- email me if you are interested in any of the following:
  
  -Hourglass Marble Project
  -COOL Conference in San Francisco, March 18-20 http://www.idealist.org/ioc/conference/index2.html
  -GROW Conference at Brown -- THIS WEEKEND. IF YOU WANT TO ATTEND, CONTACT IMMEDIATELY: Kate_Moulding@brown.edu
  -Plan Colombia lecture panel, April 26 -- organized by SSDP
  -much involvement with Sustainable Food Initiative projects.  contact: Louella_Hill@brown.edu for more info.
  
  -there is room, especially in March, for other activities.  Let me know if there's anything you're particularly interested in or any other groups you'd like to collaborate with.
  
  See you next week,
  Stella