About Our Event

Welcome to the Women and Fair Trade Festival organized by
Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera (Austin So Close to the Border), now in its 17th year. We invite women’s cooperatives to come from all over the world to tell their stories about globalization and to sell their beautiful, handmade items. Each year, we hold this event hosting these cooperatives who sell fair trade products.

This sale is about much more than purchasing quality products. It is about:
• Supporting women’s cooperatives which serve as a living
alternative to dominant forms of production and distribution that
exploit rather than support the communities who create the goods we purchase.
• Influencing buyer’s purchasing habits to favor small autonomous producers
instead of adding to corporate profits.
• Shortening the gap between producer and buyer while
listening to their stories about their local communities and buying
directly from them.

The Austin Tan Cerca staff and volunteers have long been committed
to moving the debate around trade out of the realm of political theory and
into real life. There is nothing more real than women searching for ways to provide for their families, nurture their communities, and preserve their dignity and their culture.

The sale showcases cooperatives that work at the grassroots level
in enabling their communities to prosper and continue their
cultural traditions based on weaving, sewing, basketry, ceramics
and other local crafts. We also include cultural and educational
aspects such as live musical performance, a poetry concert, and/or
documentary film.

10% of all proceeds go to Austin Tan Cerca to help ensure
this event continues on an annual basis.