For Christmas, buy fair-trade gifts

Catholic Relief Services is offering a catalog of fair-trade items that include handcrafts, gourmet foods, coffee and chocolates. CRS is promising that orders placed before December 20 will be delivered in time for Christmas. According to the charity, each purchase from the “Work of Human Hands catalog creates new opportunities and financial security for needy producers overseas.”

 

Gifts are available from artisans in more than 40 countries. These include chocolates made from cocoa   produced by a cooperative of farm families in Ghana. From Haiti comes beautiful handwork made from recycled steel oil drums. Available from the catalog, for instance, is Nativity scene cut from a recycled oil drum made by the Comite Artisanal Haitien. 

                       

Available too is a Mother And Child Statuette, carved of soapstone in Kenya and then dyed and incised with a repeating star pattern by a cooperative in the east African country. You can also get your morning cup of joe form the country where coffee originated. From the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe cooperative comes fair-trade coffee that is building sustainable economies.             

 

The Work of Human Hands catalog is produced by SERRV International, a partner of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Fair Trade.  We  work together to offer consumers the chance to buy high quality, fairly traded handcrafts and gourmet food items from farmers and artisans all over the world.

 

Visit CRS Fair Trade’s website at www.crsfairtrade.org/crafts or call 800.685.7572. 

 

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States.  The agency provides assistance to people in need in nearly 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality.  For more information, please visit www.crs.org.