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Great ACORN Reports from around the World and Remittance Campaign Breakthroughs

Jill O'Reilly gives ACORN Ottawa report to attentive organizers

Mexico City   A highlight of the year is always getting the reports of ACORN International affiliates around the world and hearing about the progress and the challenges members, leaders, and organizers are facing.  The obstacles are legion, but so are some of the surprises.

Vinod Shetty from [...]

The Paradoxes of Certification in Fair Trade & Social Responsibility

New Orleans   The ineffective anarchy of FLO certification through the various national fair trade organizations (though not the USA, since ours has disaffiliated, further weakening the standards) is crumbling before my eyes based on their own inability to change and the constant assault by both major corporations on one hand, who assert that they can do [...]

Learning Direct Trade in the Coffee Mountains of San Juancito

View of San Juancito

San Juancito     At first I was confused driving out of the serpentine mountains and hillsides on which Tegucigalpa is perched, but then I realized that we were on the same highway we had traveled a year ago to Valle de los Angeles, a small, pretty colonial spot specializing in pupusas and tourists.  [...]

On the Farm in Paterno: Organic versus Fair Trade

Paterno   I had been to Paolo Guarnaccia’s family farm in 2009 when a group of us had dinner with his family while talking about the Simeto Valley.  Now I saw it differently as we joined his wife for a simple and delicious lunch there.  I had not fully realized that the farm was still in Paterno, [...]

Death Threats, Web Attacks, and Organizing Reports

Dilcia Zevala giving the Tegucigalpa Report

Tegucigalpa A critical feature to the annual international meeting of the ACORN International board and staff beginning last year in Lima and now with both excitement and trepidation is the reports from offices around the world on their progress.  All of this is well and good, but [...]

Teachers on Hunger Strike, Union Fighting Wholesale Repression

Hunger Striking for teachers

Tegucigalpa Before 8 AM on Monday morning we were greeting Jaime Rodriguez, the President of COPEMH (Colegiio de Profesores de Educacion Media de Honduras) in the parking lot of the Colegio and teachers’ union.  Even as the lights left us in darkness drinking our sweet coffee in a sky lit [...]