Fair trade building bridges

trevor.kenney — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:04:50 +0000

Before she came to Lethbridge, Janelle Gerestein had no interest in travelling. Two separate trips to Bolivia have since changed her mind.

Gerestein, who is originally from Brooks, graduated with a bachelor of management degree from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in 2008. She decided to put her degree to use by helping people in the underdeveloped South American country, where the poverty level hovers around 60 per cent.

"When I started at the U of L, I thought I didn't want to leave Lethbridge; I love it here, I'm a southern Alberta girl," she says. "I couldn't see myself travelling at all. But then once you go, you get a bug. It's an experience."

Janelle Gerestein used her Integrated Management Experience (IME) class to cultivate her interests in fair trade and social responsibility.

Her first Bolivian journey began in September 2008. The Canadian International Development Agency's International Youth Internship Program funded her placement.

"I was working as a fair trade marketing specialist for a micro-credit, non-profit organization doing market research. They wanted to do a pilot project to finance Bolivian agricultural producers to become fair-trade certified and find importers in Canada," Gerestein explains.

"It's the exchange of know-how and capacity building that are huge themes. So we're not just going in there and telling people how to do things; it's sharing skills."

Gerestein is making a second journey to Bolivia, this time with the Centre for International Studies and Co-operation (CECI), a Montreal-based organization, and their Uniterra initiative.

"I'm working with a network of artisan groups. There are six organizations in this network and they include more than 4,000 Bolivian artisans and producers of traditional handicrafts," Gerestein says about her year-long stay.

"You hear the story behind each product and that the artisan is getting a fair price; they're able to support their family and have medical care and food. The goal is to find at least two Canadian importers, improve the organization's web presence and create an online catalogue besides other initiatives."

Gerestein, who speaks some Spanish and wants to learn Portuguese and French, says she doesn't expect to make a permanent move to Bolivia, but would perhaps consider going for a couple of months every year.

"There's still a ton of development work to be done, but I have different career ideas in mind, too. I like to keep my options open and explore."

She is quick to credit the U of L's program as an important contributor to her recent experiences, saying her participation in the Faculty's Integrated Management Experience from 2006-07 was a key factor in her success.

"I started learning about fair trade and social responsibility. I wouldn't even really have known about these opportunities if it wasn't for Dan Kazakoff's class in applied consulting, in which I participated in a marketing project for Ten Thousand Villages. I thought 'I want to go and make a difference and use the marketing background'," Gerestein says, adding it's a great opportunity "even just to share that."

To learn more about the Faculty of Management at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, follow this link.

UNews - Janelle Gerestein

Fair trade building bridges

Related Topics