9:20 p.m.
The university is quiet. Some students have retired to their dorm rooms after dinner at the cafeteria, others have their books sprawled out on wooden tables in the library trying to cram weeks of reading into one night, and still others are walking to their last class of the day.
9:30 p.m.
The classroom is located on the third floor of a building that is usually closed so that Professor Combellick… I mean Kate has to call a few people to get it opened. This really shouldn’t be a problem, but the people in charge of locking the academic buildings seems to forget that this class is held every Tuesday from 9:30 to 11:30 at night.
9:35 p.m.
Welcome to our fair trade and microfinance class. The tables are arranged in a rectangle, there aren’t any assigned seats and students do not have any real preference. Kathleen, Bryan, and Vipin have their laptops opened up in front of them. Sean and Sonny are sitting comfortably in their rolling chairs. Raina is putting her backpack and helmet down on the floor beside her. Amy is chugging a liter of water. Brendan and Matt come in and sit down. Bridget and I talk about the weekend. Kate hands out the agenda for the night, it lists all of the things we need to talk about before our two hours are up – individual updates. Do we have enough inventory for the next selling event? Profit update from Matt. Money transfer from our account to Joseph Mochina’s. How do we publicize the store more? There’s an admissions event coming up, do we want to sell there? Can we get James Fernandez, CFO of Tiffany and Co. to speak at Fordham? Should we sell at the football and basketball games? Who will volunteer to research the financial history of Kenya? Can we talk to Erika’s aunt about structuring a microloan? What did everyone think about Easterly’s introduction in his book entitled “The White Man’s Burden?” And did you like the last assigned video on TED.com? The points are lined up on crisp white paper, they always look daunting, and we hardly make it through them in the short time we have, but we do our best.
9:37
The individual updates do not start in a particular way, we usually just volunteer a person to go first and go around the room in one direction or the other. Matt says that we have enough inventory for our next sale. We talk about when our next order is coming in and everybody is excited. Have we decided on which cross we want to order for the Global Outreach teams on campus? Did anybody talk to Father Barry about selling at the Prep? We need to make ads about the store. We need to make it more store-like, and make it a common space for fair traders. Sean and Amy met James Fernandez at an event last week and asked him if he could speak at Fordham, he said yes. Let’s get Tognino Hall for the talk, it’s the prettiest location on campus! Kathleen is going to try to reserve it for us. I tell the class that we can set up a Skype date with my aunt who is excited to talk to us about microfinance. Is there anything more about the business that we need to talk about? Kate asks Raina, our consultant who is taking her masters at NYU and has an internship on top of all the other cool things she does around New York City. Vipin tells us that he renewed our URL online, or is it called a domain? I’m unsure of the cyber terms, but he saved us from a potentially terrible situation. Sonny has some of the volunteers researching things for us and attending the Fair Trade Coalition meeting downtown. Bridget tweeted about our upcoming sale on that online network called Twitter and more Twitter people or companies are following us everyday. Brendan is writing all of this down, he’s in charge of reminding us what we said and committed to lest we forget over the 7 days before we reconvene. Oh no, the time…
11:05
It’s already 11:05 and we haven’t yet gotten to the academic part of the course. We talk about “The Legend of the Big Push” in Easterly’s book, we try to grapple with the statement: “aid does not work.” Each of us have our own questions, our minds are reeling. Why doesn’t aid work? Why hasn’t the money been invested instead of consumed? We know that microfinance works, that programs with a high degree of transparency and accountability work, why aren’t we doing that? Planners and searchers, hippos and cheetahs. The things we read, videos we watch, and work we do are all interconnected. Kate stops for awhile to look at Bridget, she asks her why she looks so sad. Bridget sighs, “it’s just so frustrating…” We all agree, because we know what’s wrong and sometimes it feels like we can’t do anything to change it. But Kate reminds us that we are doing something – something beautiful, recreating a college course into a business that allows disadvantaged people in Kenya an opportunity for growth and a living wage. We are using our resources, our education, our minds and hearts to help and be men and women for others. She reminds us that the simple task of tagging merchandise and counting product might be mind numbing, but they are necessary tasks and they make a difference. Yes, even the small things make a difference. I know, it’s important not to get overwhelmed, do the work that must be done… oh no, the time…

11:32
The air in the classroom is vibrating with sighs, slow exhales of breath from a highly productive and educative class. Some of us stay to talk to Kate or set up meeting times with other members of the team. Thank you for your time, and please, you’re always welcome to come to class.

To read more about our team please visit us at http://studentsforfairtrade.com

Tags: economic justice, equal exchange, fair trade, Fordham

This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 7:30 am and is filed under A Day in the Life Of..., Education, Trade & Economic Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.