SouthwestTaking Root: A Southwest Sustainable Food Summit February 11-13, 2011 in sunny Tempe, Arizona! REGISTER HERE: http://www.usft.org/southwestsummit
What: Across the southwest, youth are standing up for food justice. On college campuses, students are asking for fair trade food, that their food service workers are being treated well, and that access to healthy and sustainable food be increased. During this conference, learn how to take the next step and work with your university to make an impact of the lives of producers, consumers, the environment, and your community, so that your food stands for justice. Our focus will be on spearheading Fair Trade University campaigns and attaining fair trade and real food on your campus and in your community! Students from Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma will come together to become part of the ever-evolving and growing fair trade and real food movement on campuses in the Southwest. Bring your stories, your friends, your passion and excitement for social justice, and share as we share with you.
Schedule: The conference will run from 4pm Friday the 11th to 12pm on Sunday the 13th, and will feature national speakers from the realms of fair trade, real food, and labor activism in order for students to gain organizing skills to be able to run a Fair Trade University and/or Real Food Challenge Campaign on their campus. Meanwhile, academics, businesspeople, and others specializing in food systems will present on their areas of expertise, in topics such as urban agriculture, labor and immigration, access and poverty, and workers rights. At the end of the conference, students and allies will come away with a vision that includes tangible steps to lead Fair Trade University and Real Food Challenge campaigns to better their university's food system. Skills: Fair Food Now!: Becoming a Fair Trade University, Piloting the Real Food Calculator, Farm to Cafeteria, Organizing 101, Organizing v.2.0, Empowering a Student Food Cooperative on Your Campus, Edible Education: Growing the School Gardens Revolution, and more.
Topics: The SW Foodshed in National Context, The International Food System's Local Implications, Regional Distribution, the New Economy Working Group, Stories on International Food Production, and more.
Registration: Register at http://www.usft.org/ Call for Proposals: If you'd like to present, indicate so in the registration form or email southwestcoordinator@usft.org. Hello from sunny Tempe, Arizona, part of the vibrant and evolving southwest! My name is Kim Pearson and I am this year's Southwest Coordinator! I'm a junior majoring in Sustainability and Spanish Literature at Arizona State University in Tempe, part of greater Phoenix. My principle areas of study include food systems, economics, Spanish and the indigenous civilization of the southwest. Those who live here in the SW are surrounded by a rich history of economic, cultural, and political exchange, specifically with Mexico and Central America. Because of this, we are in the unique position to learn hands-on about international trade policies, such as NAFTA, and their effects, in addition to the fair trade solutions being engaged! Meanwhile, our own region is ripe for fair trade activism, and various campaigns for labor rights, specifically within agriculture, have been waged and are ongoing. I am also involved with the Real Food Challenge (realfoodchallenge.org), and hope to engage everyone within these two movements during the SW regional super convergence in January, in order to define how we can create sustainability within the region, based on fair trade policies and sustainable food philosophies. I hope to support you by connecting you to other students, businesses, religious groups, and fair trade activists as well as being an educational and organizational resource. Please feel free to email me about anything; fair trade events, fair trade businesses, questions about how to get fair trade on your campus, how to affiliate with USFT, arguments for opponents, or just to talk about what you had for breakfast. I will gladly post events, successes, and anything Fair Trade on our website. I am here to help you in whatever way you need, to connect you to people overcoming similar obstacles, and to share your stories to inspire people everywhere. This is an incredible movement and you have the power to continue pushing it forward. A conversation is an action. Let's talk. If not you, who? Kim Pearson southwestcoordinator@usft.org Read about successes here! Southwest News ( categories: )
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