Fair Trade & Social Justice

Refugees often have little more than what they can carry when they arrive in a new country. But some have found a way to use the flavors of their pasts to raise money, build a new life, and help find acceptance in their new homes through the Displaced Kitchens project by Nasser Jab and Jabber Al-Bihani.

Whether cops helping feed the needy actually cuts down on crime is a hard thing to quantify. But almost everyone agrees on this: A Miami police effort, working with the nonprofit food distribution group Farm Share, has made cops and some poor communities they serve at least a little bit closer. Some people who once wouldn’t talk with officers on the beat now do. 

Esmeralda Zendejas, an attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) who has represented numerous dairy workers over the years, says that wage theft is routine in the dairy industry, and that employer-provided housing, often onsite, tends to be less than optimal. There can be serious safety hazards for children, like open manure lagoons, and injuries are common. “We’ve had workers who have been smashed by cows,” she said. “The response from employers is often, ‘Walk it off.’ Many people won’t complain, because they fear retaliation.”

Rather than accept the unlivable wages and unpredictable scheduling that working in fast food often requires, Shantel Walker decided to try to make a positive change for herself and other workers like her. In 2013, she joined the Fight for 15—the nationwide advocacy movement that successfully won an increase in the minimum wage in New York City and elsewhere.

She now spends the little free time she has doing unpaid organizing work for Fast Food Justice and Fast Food Forward, two grassroots advocacy nonprofits geared to the needs of fast food industry workers.