Crossroads Community Acupuncture

Our new downtown Las Cruces clinic at 130 S. Main now features an assortment of “Fair Trade” products:  books, weavings, gift cards and pinatas.  A portion of proceeds form these sales goes towards our project for underserved communities in the border region.

What is Fair Trade?

Crossroads Community Acupuncture actively engages in fair trade business partnerships with the goal to create greater equity and better conditions for workers. Simply put, Fair Trade is an economic system that endeavors to pay workers a just wage for their labor. This often happens by taking out the “middleman” and establishing a more direct relationship between producer and consumer. It also happens when consumers recognize that most of the products that they are used to buying come at artificially low prices that do not reflect the true environmental or labor costs needed to produce them. Fair Trade products may be anything from agricultural to crafts, and in the case of what we offer at Crossroads, includes piñatas, books, and weavings.  Here’s more about each of the products we sell.

Weavings

Weavings for Justice is a volunteer-based, non-profit organization that works in solidarity with Mayan women’s weaving cooperatives in highland Chiapas, Mexico. The organization aims to assist women weavers to continue to live on their ancestral lands in sustainable ways that respects the land, their language, and their traditions.  Crossroads carries various hand-woven items including purses, handbags, and wallets at our Downtown clinic.  Learn more about Weavings for Justice.

Pinatas

Crossroads also offers handcrafted piñatas made by women and men of the community agency Pastoral Obrera in Juarez, Mexico. The organization helps workers who have been laid off prior to their pensioning age maintain employment so they can continue receiving a pension. All proceeds benefit border-region social and legal services, including ear acupuncture. The piñatas range from $5 to $20, some are small shelf sized and more decorative and others are large enough to be used for parties. Learn more…

Books

Crossroads is proud to now a fair trade book distributor for an inspiring new memoir about setting up a community acupuncture clinic in Lebanon. The book is Healing In Community, by Mateo Bernal, a local acupuncturist and auricular detoxification specialist. Mateo works on staff at Crossroads.  By purchasing the book from Crossroads, not from Amazon, Mateo receives a fair price for his book.  Click here to learn more about this book, read excerpts, and read reviews of it by Counterpunch and the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine.

By Rebecca Wiggins

Crossroads now sells an assortment of beautiful, hand-woven purses, handbags, and wallets.  They are fair trade products (learn more about fair trade!), made Maya women’s weaving cooperatives in Chiapas, Mexico, through a non profit organization, Weaving for Justice. 

Weaving for Justice is a volunteer organization that works in solidarity with three Maya women’s weaving cooperatives in highland Chiapas, Mexico. The organization’s goal is to assist women weavers in cooperatives so they can continue to live on their ancestral lands in sustainable ways that respect their culture, language, and traditions. Weaving for Justice helps the weavers find ways to market their products through fair trade venues in the United States, including Crossroads Community Acupuncture, and works to inform the public about threats to women’s cooperative efforts and human rights in Mexico. We also connect weaving cooperatives in Chiapas with women’s artisan groups along the U.S./Mexico border.  A percentage of these sales will benefit the Crossroads Border Project.

Crossroads carries various hand-woven items including purses, handbags, and wallets available for sale at our Downtown clinic, 130 S. Main. These are great gifts!

For More information visit their website at: www.weaving-for-justice.org