The Network

Guest blogger - Lillian O.

(from an article submitted to her church newsletter)

On Saturday, October 3rd 2009, I was given the chance to go with Brian Fairbrother and Father David to a social justice conference. I was already quite interested in social justice, so I was really quite intrigued about how Christianity could play a part in ending homelessness and other important things pertaining to social justice.

When we arrived with Taylor Esch in tow, a student who knew Brian and who had also expressed interest in coming to the conference, we were greeted with smiles and breakfast. When we had finished we were led to the auditorium where we participated in a short service and communion led by Bishop Linda Nichols. We then listened to keynote speaker Dion Oxford who spoke about what community is and how Christians should view it.

Afterwards I walked with the rest of the youth to a group room where we participated in a youth program led by Jenny Salisbury and Christian Harvey. In the morning we watched a documentary called Ordinary Radicals, about how we need to go back to the essence of Christianity, loving our neighbors and helping everybody and breaking the barriers of fear of the unknown.

After a lunch break, we went back to the youth group room and watched a documentary created by one of the conference attendees Dave Patterson. The Grade 11 student had done this documentary on fair trade chocolate and how the most popular chocolate companies like Hersheys, Lindt, Nestlé, and Cadbury use child slaves to create a delicious chocolate we know and love! I was absolutely shocked and appalled to hear this and immediately made a resolution to only eat fair trade chocolate like Ben & Jerry's another chocolate with the fair trade symbol.

I would like to ask the congregation as a whole this Halloween not to hand out chocolate bars, only candies, because if we all cut back drastically on a chocolate intake and the fair trade, the companies who use child slaves would get the message and switch to fair trade working conditions.