RETHINKING DEVELOPMENT
Local Pathways to Global Wellbeing
St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
June 20 to June 24, 2005
Rethinking Development Presenter made Knight of
the French Legion of Honour
French President, calls Francisco VanderHoff Boersma
“one of the great moral figures of our times”
The President of France, Jacques Chirac, has pronounced Francisco VanderHoff Boersma, founder of the fair trade movement, a Knight of the French Legion of Honour.
Present for the Elysee Palace award this week were UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and other leaders. The extraordinary distinction was part of the United Nations’ World Pact, where Vanderhoff was the guest of honour for his vision of a human-centred economy. President Chirac called Vanderhoff “one of the great moral figures of our times.”
Francisco VanderHoff Boersma will be in Nova Scotia next week for the Rethinking Development: Local Pathways to Global Wellbeing conference to be held at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish.
On Monday, June 20, at the conference Opening Ceremony, Vanderhoff will speak of the inner motivation and inspiration that led him to become a worker-priest striving for more than 25 years to improve the working conditions of the peasant farmers and coffee growers of Mexico’s Oaxaca region.
The next day, June 21, he will team up with Jeff Moore, founder of Just Us!, Nova Scotia, Canada’s first fair trade coffee distributor, to lead a workshop on fair trade titled: “From Seed to Sale: The Journey of the Coffee Bean.”
For more information, and to arrange media interviews please contact:
Olga Gladkikh, (902) 867-5131
ogladkik@stfx.ca.
or,
Conference Director, Ronald Colman, 902-489-7007
colman@gpiatlantic.org -30-
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