2/16/2004

Letters to the Editor

Fair trade cocoa support needed

Dear Editor:

It was interesting to read the history of chocolate in the Stater’s recent article “The gift of chocolate.” However, there is a sad and bitter fact behind all the sweet talk about chocolate.

A recent U.S. State Department report, corroborated by the International Labor Organization, concluded that in recent years approximately 15,000 children aged 9 to 12 have been sold into forced labor on cotton, coffee and cocoa plantations north of the Ivory Coast, which produces 43 percent of the world’s cocoa.

Beatings by farm owners and managers are common.

“The beatings were a part of my life,” Aly Diabate, a freed slave, told reporters in 2001. “Anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead, they beat you until you picked it up again.”

According to the non-profit organization Global Exchange, “Severe poverty, child labor, and the reemergence of child slavery can be blamed, in part, by raw cocoa prices that are too low to provide farmers with enough income to meet their production costs, much less their basic needs.”

There is a solution to this bleak situation: Fair Trade Certified cocoa. The international Fair Trade monitoring system ensures that local farmers receive a fair price for their products. It prohibits abusive child labor and forced labor. Farms are monitored once per year to ensure that all conditions are met. A wealth of information is available at globalexchange.org if you click “Fair Trade.”

Nathan Solinsky

Junior, applied conflict management

Student services need reviews

Dear Editor:

This is a response to the letter printed in the Stater earlier regarding the icy sidewalks and the vans of the Student Disability Transit Service (SDTS). It is a part of the Campus Bus Service and should not be related or confused with Student Disability Services (SDS), which handles academic and general accessibility issues.

I am making this clear distinction to demonstrate two student services going in opposite directions for obvious reasons. The Campus Bus Service has given way to PARTA fall semester, resulting in the deterioration of services like limited off-campus stops. SDS has become more efficient at providing help for accommodation with academics despite a huge increase of the number of students needing their services.

As a student with a disability, the combination of both services is what compelled me to attend Kent State in the first place over other universities. This decision was because of the level of commitment by the university as a whole toward assimilating accessibility into all aspects of campus life.

With a service like SDTS, the effects of extinction can lead to students risking injury to attend class. Don’t we pay tuitioin to ensure that we have facilities for which to learn and a method to access them?

Both good and bad experiences with any campus service need to be reported and logged to serve as documentation as to what can be improved, changed or discarded by administration.

There is an e-mail list for students, professors and staff to share both good and bad experiences like the one stated by Alastair Cameron Hodges in order to increase accessibility and opportunity for all students at Kent State.

For more information go to www.kent.edu/stuorg/auworld/coldac/.

Kevin Williams

Senior, general studies