This year, Verité launched the four-year Liderazgo, Organización y Colaboración para la Acción Colectiva en Temas Laborales (LOCAL) program, an initiative designed to foster locally-led collaborative strategies to address child and forced labor risks in Mexico’s agricultural sector.
As part of the SENDEROS Project’s services to the Tala supply chain in Jalisco, a training session with 16 sugarcane workers took place in the Ameca municipality. In Tala, sugarcane harvesters are mainly local residents. The training covered the Biological Risks (occupational safety and health) topic showcasing how to identify dangerous animals in the region and act in case of an attack. This module also included recommendations on the COVID-19 topic.
The Sowing Rights, Harvesting Better Futures (SENDEROS) project promotes adherence of the sugarcane and tobacco sectors in Mexico to national regulations and international labor standards. In 2022, SENDEROS collaborated with the Mexican government, companies, producers, and farmworkers to build capacities to detect, remedy, and prevent labor rights issues.
During 2022 Verité conducted actionable research and engaged stakeholders as part of the Cooperation On Fair, Free, Equitable Employment (COFFEE) project to create, refine, and launch a set of 17 tools comprising the Socially Sustainable Sourcing Toolkit (S3T) to meet the needs of key coffee sector stakeholders.
As part of Verité’s ongoing work to improve labor practices in the Latin American coffee sector under the U.S. Department of Labor-funded Cooperation on Fair, Free, Equitable Employment (COFFEE) Project, this year we are launching pilot projects in three key coffee producing countries — Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.
We train executives and buyers at companies committed to advancing respect for human rights in their operations and supply chains.