Make Your School Slavery-free

Coffee anyone? Make mine slavery-free please

ACRATH, in collaboration with Catholic Education Melbourne (CEM) and the Archdiocese of Melbourne, has developed a Resource Kit to help schools, workplaces, parishes and homes, transition to a slavery-free environment by creating a slavery-free staffroom/kitchen. The kit explains ‘how to’ transition to new products, includes awareness raising resources, and a ‘where to buy’ slavery free tea/coffee/drinking chocolate guide. The kit is intended to be a dynamic resource for anyone, anywhere in Australia, particularly for schools. Schools can add their logo for promotional purposes and more material will be added as new information is available.

Why go slavery-free?

It is estimated, that more than 40 million people globally are trapped in slavery or slavery-like conditions – one in four of them a child. Much of the coffee and tea we drink, and the cocoa used in the chocolate we eat and drink, can be traced back to these children and adults working in conditions of slavery. Making your staffroom or kitchen slavery-free is a simple act. However, by deciding to buy only products certified slavery-free, we can help eradicate child labour, forced labour and human trafficking and make a difference in our world.

Catholic Social Teaching calls us to give a preferential option for the poor, ensuring we care for the poorest and most vulnerable people. Those who are trafficked and/or enslaved or who are forced to work in slave-like conditions are among the poorest and most vulnerable.  Pope Francis, in his 2015 World Peace Day Message, reminds us of what Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in Veritate (n. 66): that every person should ‘realise that purchasing is always a moral – and not simply an economic – act’. 

Click here to find the kit and make the swap to slavery-free today.