Eat a poppadom - help a women’s cooperative

There's a story on the BBC about a co-operative in India that empowers women, who received very little education, to use their skills to create a source of income. The ability to generate income and the associated financial independence is an effective way to tackle problems such as domestic violence and gender inequality. So I think that it's great that schemes like this exist.

From the article:

Mumbai-based businessman and entrepreneur Sushil Jwarijka explains: "Lijjat papads are a perfect example of how a sustainable business can be built, providing large-scale employment to rural women, who are illiterate but skilled.

"And when such skills are given an organisational structure on a co-operative basis a long term sustainable model assures success."

Related to this story is Kiva, which is a website that allows people to make micro loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. It's very interesting so i reccomend that you check it out.

[This story came via the F-Word Blog.]

Yet more good news for Fairtrade

By way of Politics for People comes news that Cadbury is to switch its entire line of chocolate to Fairtrade. This is obviously not just good news to those of us who believe in co-operative values but also especially to the cocoa farmers of Ghana.

This is excellent news and goes to show the strength of fair trade. The extra income should be a boost for development in Ghana, and fair trade is the best way to ensure that money goes to the people that have worked for it, and who deserve their fair share.

The Fairtrade mark is aimed at securing a better deal for developing market commodity producers, and is used on a range of products such as coffee and bananas. UK Fairtrade sales reached an estimated retail value of 700 million pounds in 2008.

...

Ghana, the world's second-biggest producer of cocoa after the Ivory Coast, produces around 5,000 tonnes of Fairtrade cocoa, but the Cadbury deal should triple that to 15,000 tonnes annually. There are an estimated 700,000 cocoa farmers producing Ghana's second most valuable commodity after gold.

I see Ghana also produces gold, which makes it a doubly good week for them.