About the Speakers:

Charis Elliott is the Founder and Executive Director of          Las Otras Hermanas, founded in March of 2008. She has also founded and runs The Fair Trade Store in downtown Phoenix’s Civic Space Park. The Fair Trade Store serves as a retail space to sell items made by members of ALDEA in Juárez as well as items from over 15 countries, all items are fairly traded and all profits return to Las Otras Hermanas’ programs and Karuna Village Fair Trade. Since June of 2009, she has also served as the Program Director for Karuna Village Fair Trade, working to bring fair trade education, events and products to downtown Phoenix. Ms. Elliott serves as a member of Transfair USA’s Cooperative Advisory Group. Prior to opening The Fair Trade Store, Charis served as the United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) Southwest Regional Coordinator, founded the USFT student group at Arizona State University, and worked for a year as the Intake Coordinator in the Legal Departments of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona. Ms. Elliott has conducted research about fair trade in Aceh Province, Indonesia, Oaxaca and Juárez, Mexico, Nicaragua, Switzerland, specializing in the certification of fair trade cotton and coffee. She is graduating with her B.A. in Political Science and has started her graduate work at Arizona State University.

Veronica Leyva is a grassroots organizer in Juárez, Mexico. She spent 10 years working in maquiladoras, and has been organizing in her community for 15 years conducting workshops on worker's and women's rights. She has also been involved with the struggle for justice for the victims of the femicides in Ciudad Juárez. She is founder of ALDEA, a community organization in Juárez, Mexico that works with the fair trade organization Las Otras Hermanas (LOH) based in Phoenix.

About the Organizations:

Las Otras Hermanas, Phoenix, Arizona

Las Otras Hermanas (LOH) is a non-profit organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. Las Otras Hermanas works in solidarity with a group of women who are members of the Zapatista Identified organization, ALDEA, based in Juárez, Mexico, to produce a fair trade, organic clothing line. The aim of Las Otras Hermanas is to connect communities and build an alternative economy built on transparency, dialogue, and respect. Our vision for the world is simple: We believe that all should have equal opportunity to live up to their potential…whether they are born into a middle-class family in Tempe, Arizona or whether they grew up in Juárez, Mexico surviving on a few dollars a day. Additionally, LOH works in Arizona to promote awareness of fair trade and other international trade issues.

ALDEA - Alianza para el Desarrollo Autogestivo (Alliance for the Self-Managed Development), Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico

ALDEA is a asociación civil (civil association, the Mexican equivalent of a non-profit) based in Ciudad Juárez, in the colonias (neighborhoods) Ignacio Ramos and Colinas del Norte. ALDEA is made up of men and women who are working towards community development through gender equality and economic opportunity. They conduct workshops teaching methods of achieving gender equality. ALDEA also provides workshops teaching job skills to improve access to economic opportunity. Their work with LOH fulfills the both parts of their mission by providing economic opportunities for women in their community.

Visit Las Otras Hermanas online