Ethical sourcing, Fair Trade and giving back – Sahel
Ethical sourcing and supporting Fair Trade is an important and effective means of bringing benefits to producers and workers in the Third World that works towards greater equity in global trading relationships. Being part of it you’ll gain insight into lifestyle of other cultures and enrich your own being. Your import export business benefits and your own lifestyle becomes more complete. As you progress toward a point where your life and business ventures become one, giving back gains on more meaning. Needless to say as there are countless causes one can get involved with, opportunities for giving back are endless. Question becomes where, what causes do I select and why. The answers can only be found within you, some perhaps based on your own interests in peoples and cultures that you may have visited or may follow because their plight touched you.
One region of the world that has long been in the news not only due to its harsh natural environmental conditions but also on account of being subjected to extreme suffering as a result of political and social upheavals. That region is Sahel, a semi-arid tropical savanna ecoregion in Africa, which forms the transition between the Sahara to the north and the slightly less arid savanna belt to the south. It runs from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, and the countries of the Sahel are among the poorest in the world, including Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea. Here live a great variety of ethnic groups whose products you may wish to import as part of Fair Trade. To learn more about the region, its products, arts and crafts and to get involved, either in Fair Trade or by donating to the sustainable solutions to the poverty experienced by millions of people across these drylands, check out the work of SOS Sahel, UK-based NGO. SOS Sahel is committed to helping the people of the Sahel to have more influence over the decisions that affect their lives and more control over the natural and economic resources they need for a secure and fulfilling life. See also more of the stunning Sahel photographs of the renowned photographer Roberto Neumiller.