Full Circle Fair Trade

In 2007, while completing her graduate degree at School for International Training in Brattleboro, VT, Sara Stender, the Founding CEO of 3 Mountains, did her practicum with a local fair trade company called Kusikuy, an importer of high quality alpaca fiber sweaters and children’s clothes from Bolivia. During that process, she and the owner launched an annual fair trade festival with Sara organizing many  local companies that were actively sourcing fair trade products to be part of the movement. She completed her masters dissertation on “The Role of Multinational Corporations in the Fair Trade Movement.”

Sara became so passionate about this work, she was quickly introduced to some other Fair Trade activists in the U.S. and met David Funkhouser and Paul Rice, two of Fair Trade USA’s originators. At this time the organization was known as TransFair USA and Sara helped to form the nation’s Fair Trade Towns campaign. She was also the National Coordinator for Fair Trade Day and worked closely with other leading organizations to help raise awareness about fair trade, including Fair Trade Association, Fair Trade Resource Network, No Sweat, and Oxfam America.

From the age of 22, when she was profoundly impacted by the story of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, Sara knew that one day she would go to Rwanda and work with women there, to learn from them about the “Spirit of Resiliency”. Thanks to Fair Trade USA and other global citizens working to improve international trade, Sara was able to clearly see her purpose and passion and since 2007 she has been building personal relationships with producers, farmers, and artisans in Rwanda, and has supported women starting businesses and a Women’s Association  through the nonprofit that she founded, Africa Healing Exchange (AHE).

Having come full circle and now joining Fair Trade USA as an importer through a vision and a mission to help create a quality exchange between tea producers in Rwanda & conscious consumers in North America, Sara and 3 Mountains invite you to learn more about the product lines TÎma Tea and Silverback on Tap™.   Please consider joining the 3 Mountains crew on the next Crop to Cup Tour in Rwanda, June 2019!