by Fr Shay Cullen
Fiss, Austria [Wikipedia]
[Fr Cullen doesn’t name the small town he visited]
When the mayor of this seemingly clean and well-ordered town invited me during my lecture tour to a meeting with his town council in 2014 he said the town had problems and asked if I could help.
At first he discussed fair trade and how his town could do more to support the sale of Preda Fair Trade products and help ease the global exploitation of poor farmers and indigenous people he had read about in the Preda Fair Trade website (www.predafairtrade.net).
He would like to get the town certified as a “Fair Trade” town by the International Fair Trade Committee that makes the awards. “Well, Mayor,” I said, “that will depend on the amount of fair trade products that are sold here at the World Shop based on the population of the town over a given period.”
He smiled and nodded. “I know that your organization Preda Foundation is also working against unfair trade, I read in your web site, campaigning against the trade in human beings, saving the victims in a therapeutic home. Can we be a part of that too?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, “the sales of Preda products help save and heal the trafficked and abused children sold into sex slavery.”
He then asked how we work to get mayors like him to help.
I explained that the government and a large part of the Philippine population are in denial and need to be freed from unknowing, indifference and apathy. They need to be freed from the secret silence that surrounds the hateful and sordid crime against innocent and vulnerable children.
Continue on website of Preda.