I really hate being ugly.

It is sometimes difficult for an average person to be friends with beautiful people.

Just sayin'.

http://www.satyamag.com/dec02/edit1.html

That chocolate you love so much may just have begun its journey to your mouth upon the backs of beaten slaves.

Slaves?, you ask. Yes; slavery is alive and well. There are currently over 27 million slaves in the world today. Many of them harvest one of your favorite things: cocoa.

Human trafficking is a common occurrence in western Africa, where human beings are bought to harvest cocoa. Often, if workers are not enslaved, they earn slave-wages and are still poverty-stricken and dependent on their employers. In either case, children are also forced to work in terrible conditions without education or medical care.

A large percentage of the world's cocoa comes from western Africa; it takes dedicated companies to invest in non-slave and non-slave-wage producers to make a difference. It takes YOU to tell them to make that difference.



Companies actively work to fight slavery in the cocoa trade and promote fair trade wages. They invest in their farming communities via improvement projects, education, and fair payment. How do YOUR usual companies measure up? Doing the research is worth it. Here is what you do:

Compose a letter to your company asking about its policy as to slavery and fair trade in the cocoa industry. Ask them to provide a list of their official criteria for their cocoa suppliers, and ask who their cocoa suppliers are. Find the suppliers. What are their criteria? This community is dedicated to doing that research.

To learn more about human trafficking, slavery, fair trade, and chocolate, visit the links below:

http://www.antislavery.org/
http://www.stopthetraffik.org/chocolatecampaign/
http://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/
http://www.cocoainitiative.org/
http://www.theamazingchange.com/
http://www.purefood.org/starbucks/chocolate.cfm

More information is easily acquired by Googling "slavery and chocolate," "cocoa slave," or "fair trade chocolate."

For a list of other Fair Trade Certified chocolate companies, click here:
http://www.transfairusa.org/content/certification/licensees2.php#cocoa

For some projects about slavery and cocoa, go here: http://www.cocoainitiative.org/pages/default.asp?idm1=64&idm2=89&pageid=89

Don't eat chocolate harvested by slave labor. Do the research. Most importantly: get the word out, and keep looking for opportunities to ACT!

So, it looks like I will be making a YouTube theology/Christian religion channel, where I will be doing some web lectures for my teaching class.  So, any suggestions on topics that would require lots of added diagrams, images, and video clips?

I was thinking of adding a little humor to it, as well.