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Amanda Chamblee

Dr. Dietel-McLaughlin

FYC 13100

18 November 2010

Free Workers and Fair Trade

The topic for my visual essay is a topic that is pretty important to me as a Catholic and it

is something I think other people should be aware of as well. Fair Trade first came up in my

Catholic Social Teaching class my senior year of high school and automatically the subject

caught my attention. I was not really aware of the kinds of things that went on across seas on the

cocoa farms that produced the cocoa beans to make the chocolate in the candy bars that I was

used to eating. But as soon as it was brought to my attention, I became very passionate about this

subject; which is why I chose to do my visual essay on it.

First of all, the audience is the Notre Dame community for a couple of reasons. The first

reason is because Notre Dame is a Catholic institution and a part of our Catholic identity is

reaching out to people in need; such as the cocoa farmers who are forced to do slave labor.

Secondly, Notre Dame is a very prestigious and influential place and if an issue such as Fair

Trade is brought to the students attention, I know it will spread throughout campus and even to

other parts of the country that look towards Notre Dame as an example of how to lead a good

life.

After choosing my audience, I decided to open my visual essay with pictures of Notre

Dame so that it was clear who the audience was that I was targeting. I talked about the Catholic

identity of the school and how it was the Universitys duty to change what they were selling in

the Huddle Mart. I took the pictures of campus and the Huddle Mart myself so that I could

control how the University was viewed in my project. I wanted it to look like a very holy and

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mighty place to convey the fact that Notre Dame is definitely in a position to make a difference

in this issue.

The rest of the photographs were taken from the internet, however, they were selected

very carefully because I wanted them to convey a certain message. Slide 3 starts to get into the

details about the issue Fair Trade is trying to combat. I used both Nestle and Hersheys logos as

well as a half eaten chocolate heart to portray the evils that the two companies openly participate

in. Both companies know that their cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast where the slave labor is

found, yet neither of them have chosen to do anything about it. They claim that slavery is a grave

injustice, however, they do not want to purchase cocoa from anywhere else because it is not as

cheap.

The next slide shows a picture of a young boy working with cocoa beans. I messed with

the colors of this picture and ended up turning them black and white for a specific reason. I

wanted it to look more devastating because it is showing slavery first hand, and I did this by

taking all the color and light out of the photo. To accompany the photo, I put some facts about

child slavery and how often it occurs in poorer countries. This makes the audience realize that it

is real and that it still happens today. One of the pictures on the next slide is also in black and

white for the same reasons. It is of a child crying because of the pain and torment he is put

through everyday so I thought it would be beneficial to take the color out of this one as well; and

also to be consistent so that the audience kind of knows where I am going. Also on this slide is a

picture of a chocolate bunny crying tears of blood. This is a very powerful message because it

symbolizes the pain and anxiety felt by the child slaves as well as the sadness the audience

should be feeling. The two pictures together compliment each other rather well because the child

is crying over the situation he faces on a daily basis while the bunny is crying over the fact that

he is made out of cocoa beans harvested by an enslaved child.

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The next two slides pose a solution to the problem of slave labor. By purchasing Fair

Trade products, consumers are funding organizations that pay their workers fair amounts of

money for the work that they do. As a result, there are less funds supporting slavery. These slides

are fairly helpful because they list a couple brands of candy that are certified by Fair Trade

companies as well as give some facts about Fair Trade and how it benefits the workers. Then the

last slide makes the audience feel obligated as part of their duty to the country to support Fair

Trade. By associating Fair Trade with an American flag, I am making the audience feel like they

are supporting their country by supporting this cause and that makes them feel good so they will

actually want to go out and do it.

The last thing I did to set the tone of the whole piece was put in background music. I

chose Man In the Mirror written by Michael Jackson because it is a very inspirational song. It

talks about injustice in the world and how a lot of people are either blind to it or they look past it

because their lives are fine and they automatically assume that everyone elses are as well. But

because this is not the case, Michael is trying to make people realize that there are many things

in the world that need to be changed; but in order for anything to change, we must start by

changing ourselves, changing our hearts and minds. Once we do that, we can make a difference

in anything. This message was important because the audience needs to be aware that every time

they bite into a bar produced by Hersheys or Nestle, they are supporting slavery and unless they

are going to do something about their guilt, the problem will never be solved.