5 Last-Minute Fair Trade Halloween Costume Ideas

by Sarah Parker · 2010-10-28 06:00:00 UTC
Topics:

Halloween is a few days away. Do you still need a costume? With some creative costuming, you can promote the Fair Trade movement and educate your friends about stopping human trafficking. So put on your responsible consumer hat, guys and ghouls, and make slave-free costume purchases this Halloween with these five last-minute Fair Trade costume ideas:

1) Purchase traditional items from a certified Fair Trade retailer, like One World Import's Bolivian cloth masks or Marketplace India's kaftans. You can even get straight-up Halloween costumes from fair trade retailer Elope, Inc. or order sports gear and uniforms from Fair Trade Sports Retail. You'll have to pay extra for express shipping, but that's the price for fabulous, last-minute costumes.

2) If depending on last minute shipping makes you nervous, recycle costumes and clothing instead. Go to a thrift store or swap years' past costumes with friends. Heck, make it a costume swapping party and serve up some Fair Trade chocolate and coffee while you're at it.

3) Go "Fair Trade Certified" by picking an item you want to promote for Fair Trade, such as coffee or chocolate, and adding the "Fair Trade Certified" logo. For some photos and easy DIY ideas, check out Green Mountain Coffee's Halloween post here.

4) If your costuming goal is education and awareness, go as a slave and bring some info with you on how people can learn more or what they can do to end slavery, like websites to check out or online petitions to sign. For example, wear some old clothes and bring a basket of tomatoes along with info on the plight of enslaved Immokalee farm workers in Florida and this petition to pay them a fair wage.

5) If you want to be the hit of all the Halloween shenanigans, you can't lose with freebies. Stock up on fair trade chocolates, coffee, and other goods. Then don some fairy wings to become the "Fair Trade Fairy" or outdoorsy wear to be the "Fair Trade Trader" and pass out Fair Trade freebies to all your friends!

And remember, while you may be promoting Fair Trade this Halloween, Hershey, one of Halloween's major chocolate providers, still needs to get on board with the movement. Tell Hershey to raise the bar and put policies in place to protect its workers from abuses and ensure a slave-free supply chain for it's products. Then we can all have a happy Halloween.

Photo By: YAXZONE

Sarah Parker is a film industry pro, photographer, and avid abolitionist in L.A.’s faith community and abroad.

RELATED PETITION

Hershey: Raise the Bar!
VICTORY!
54,297 People
PREVIOUS STORY:
Craigslist's Closure Cuts Online Sex Ads By Half
NEXT STORY:
Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, how are you going to take action?

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.