ACCORD was founded in 1986 to work with the Adivasis (the indigenous people of India) of the Gudalur valley of the Nilgiri Hills in Southern India. ACCORD supported the Adivasis to assert their land rights and went on to assisting them to plant their land with tea. Tea was chosen, as it is a permanent crop ensuring continued ownership of the land and a stable income for the Adivasi. As a result there were tangible improvements in the health standards, education levels of the community. As their bargaining power and status increased it also altered the power relationships with the dominant communities of the area. However, in recent years, market forces and global competition has sent tea prices crashing -  threatening to pull the adivasis back into poverty.

This prompted us to search for new ways of securing their livelihoods in a globalised world. In 1991, we came across Fairtrade for the first time, in the shape of a German fair trade organisation. The concept delighted us. Here at last, we thought, were answers to the issue of "justice". "Fairtrade not Aid" sounded revolutionary, but very soon we discovered its limitations.

The overall volume of tea being traded under the fair trade banner then was very small and not large enough to have any serious impact. Fairtrade, we discovered, was nrearly as susceptible to market forces as mainstream trade and paying a premium price over existing market prices when the market prices themselves were crashing through the floor was not enough.

Unfairness everywhere

It really struck home when Mari and Stan, founders of ACCORD and Just Change were in the Britain in 1994 to do a study of UK poverty. They were appalled to find people on housing estates in Easterhouse, Glasgow, drinking loads of tea but not being able to afford Fairtrade tea because it was more expensive. And in 1997, a group of adivasis who visited Germany were equally horrified to find German friends paying "more" for our tea. "They're our friends - they should pay less not more," protested Bomman, one of the adivasi group. This made us think. The "fair" was based on charity from decent westerners, but it did not challenge the power relationships between labour and capital. 

Equally, in India, the trade was not fair either. When the adivasis saw the plight of the dalit (class of "untouchables") women who clean toilets in filthy conditions day in and day out, they said: "Those people are much worse off than us. Let them keep the profits. The fact that we get a fair price for our leaf is more than enough for us." Equally, the women of Kerala state in southern India who watched the Gudalur adivasis pick tea in pouring rain in cold, misty highland weather were similarly affected. "Their work is so difficult," they said. "We must buy this tea and spread the word."

Linking communities

So here were communities right across the market spectrum, "rich" and "poor", in both India and in Britain, who are subjected to forces outside their control. We asked: "Why not link these groups?" And so Just Change was born as a different way to trade between communities. In order to put this idea into practice, in 2002, with the help of a grant from Oxfam, Just Change UK (JCUK) was formed and imported a tonne of tea directly from the adivasis.  A specialist family firm, Northern Tea Merchants, offered to package the tea and distribute it to a number of retail outlets. JCUK volunteers in Manchester, London, Birmingham, Norwich and Cambridge – young people who had returned inspired from study visits to the Nilgiris – agreed to sell tea to friends, families and local communities.  A core group of people working in international development and community empowerment in the UK, also came together to take legal responsibility and steer the development of this new initiative.

In 2005 and 2007, two groups of adivasis visited the UK.  At a workshop hosted by the New Economics Foundation, they met residents from Marsh Farm estate in Luton, one of the poorest housing estates in the country.  As they exchanged their stories – eviction and homelessness, followed by land rights and squatting – they recognised much that they had in common, including a similar analysis and understanding of the problems and potential solutions.  Since that first meeting this sense of ‘global solidarity’ has been strengthened through personal friendships, maintained for the most part by email and Marsh Farm has become the first community partner to join JCUK.  The residents are now in the process of developing a social enterprise that will enable them to become the distribution hub for JCUK products in the south and midlands, and through this to generate income for their own community as well as for the adivasis.

Just Change takes Fair Trade one step further to provide alternative trading structures and mechanisms. It seeks to change the power relationship between labour and capital. In doing so it attempts to eradicate, not just alleviate poverty. We like to think of it as  Fair Trade Plus !

See the articles, publications and materials page for more information on Just Change.