Youths of any age, from any local town, have the opportunity to participate on October 31st by signing up for a free Reverse-Trick-or-Treat Kit with Fair Trade Certified™ Organic chocolates.  Parents can register their children at A Better Footprint's Green Bay Store (1228 Main Street, Green Bay), online at www.abetterfootprint.com or by calling 920-569-6332. Registration closes on October 24th. Kids will trick-or-treat in their own neighborhoods, but will give back a pleasant and meaningful surprise to those who give them treats.

The local campaign is being organized by A Better Footprint, a Fair Trade Organization and Eco-Friendly Business in Green Bay, WI. A Better Footprint offers retail and wholesale outlets for handmade goods and organic treats that benefit the world's poor and marginalized.  A Better Footprint's co-founders, Miranda and Baptiste Paul, have traveled to West Africa and understand the importance of raising awareness about conditions in which these kids live, especially those from rural farm communities. 

"When you've seen African kids missing out on school because they are working in the fields," Mirand a Paul recalls, "it moves you.  And, once you know something about the cocoa industry, you'll never look at a chocolate chip cookie the same way again - unless it's Fair Trade."  They believe that getting local youth involved in such a campaign will make a bigger impact on adults, who may not be aware of human rights abuses in the cocoa industry and unfair pay for cocoa farmers in Africa and Latin America.  The Paul's efforts have been supported by numerous local churches and non-profit organizations whose missions are also centered around justice and help for the poor.

Parents also got involved last year by purchasing Fair Trade Certified™ Organic chocolates, baking cocoa, and other products at A Better Footprint and other local retailers.  Many of these adults plan to distribute only locally-made or Fair Trade Certified™ chocolates on Halloween this year.

To become a participating local family or to follow children during Reverse-Trick-or-Treating for live coverage or photo opportunities, please call A Better Footprint's Main office to speak with Miranda Paul or Sarah Valentine (se habla español) at 920-569-6332.
 
ABOUT THE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN
Nationwide, thousands of costumed trick or treaters in every state across the US are turning the traditional Halloween ritual on its headby handing out chocolate, for the second year in a row.  Reversing the trick or treat model, participants will be giving Fair Trade Certified™ Organic chocolate samples to nearly a quarter of a million North American households to raise awareness of: the persistent problems of poverty in cocoa-growing communities; the use of exploited child labor in the cocoa fields of countries like Cote D'Ivoire, Africa, which produces 40 percent of the world's cocoa supply; and environmental damage from unsustainable farming practices.  Millions of children between the ages of 5-17 are still toiling in cocoa production in West Africa, according to a highly anticipated study commissioned by the US Department of Labor and released this month.

The Reverse Trick-or-Treat campaign is an initiative of the human rights advocacy group Global Exchange with generous donations of chocolate by Fair Trade companies, under the leadership of Equal Exchange.
 
Other organizations with a lead role in Reverse Trick-or-Treating are Americans for Informed Democracy, Coop America, Fair Trade Federation, International Labor Rights Forum, Oasis, Slow Food, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, United Methodist Committee on Relief, and United Students for Fair Trade.

FURTHER INFO ABOUT THE MISSION OF THE CAMPAIGN

This Halloween, the Reverse-Trick-or-Treating program aims to raise awareness with children and grownups about Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate as a solution to poverty and labor abuses in the cocoa industry.   The distribution of Fair Trade chocolate is intended to: demonstrate that there already exists at least one reliable, transparent tool that the dominant cocoa and chocolate companies may adopt to fight cocoa poverty; raise the profile of the chocolate made available by companies who have committed to using only Fair Trade Certified™ cocoa; and put public pressure on the large chocolate companies to follow suit.
 
Millions of children between the ages of 5-17 are still toiling in cocoa production in West Africa, according to a highly anticipated study commissioned by the US Department of Labor and released on October 7.  The report contained dramatic evidence that children are still being trafficked into the cocoa fields to work, often without any remuneration, and suffer regular beating once they arrive.
 
The report's larger survey on the cocoa growing regions of Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana is equally disturbing.  Nearly 75% of children working in cocoa in Ghana reported sustaining an injury, such as wounds and cuts or back pain, due to agricultural work.  Work in cocoa is hazardous for children, who are required to carry very heavy loads and use machetes.  Only 50.9% of child cocoa laborers in Cote D'Ivoire had attended school in the twelve months preceding the survey.
 
Last July 1, 2008, the chocolate industry yet again failed to meet a self-imposed deadline under the conditions of the 2001 Harkin-Engel Protocol, a voluntary industry initiative that calls for an end to abusive child labor in the cocoa industry. Dozens of national nonprofit organizations and chocolate companies have united to call on the cocoa industry for reform, which can be viewed at www.reversetrickortreating.org.