do you know what euro bills are made from? cotton, among other things.
cotton which comes from several countries around the world… the origin of it is not completely clear. some of the countries get subsidies from their government for it, and others, the poorer ones, don’t. that way, they have no chance to compete with the more developed ones, whose prices will be significantly lower… and to make matters worse, a great part of these countries depends on the cotton production to hold on to their economy.
so, a group of young dutch people thought that maybe they could do something to help: a bet with one of their ministers, mr Zalm. if they could sell 10000 “honest euros” till the end of october (i think), the dutch government would start to buy its cotton from biological fair trade origins.
de euro stinkt! campaign is success, with only 800 honest euros to get there.
the project’s webpage is in dutch, but you can try a rough babelfish translation for more details. wanna participate? let me know :)
ps – our mentor, hugo, told us about this project – and now both me and levi have our honest euros. just a piece of paper resembling a bill, which cost 1 euro and is worth the same, if you want to sell it to someone else. the money goes to ICCO and other institutions. ”
The money isn’t going to ICCO. They support the project. But we (CNV Jongeren) are gonna use the money for a European campaign, so that all Euro countries will get fair cotton euros.” (hugo)
yay! I hope it gets to Portugal soon. I’ll surely help! :)
