- Use Fairtrade tea and coffee for all meetings for which we have responsibility
- Move forward on using other Fairtrade products (such as sugar, biscuits, fruit)
- Promote Fairtrade during Fairtrade Fortnight - and through other activities whenever possible
That seems a good way to mark 2005 when many people tried hard to ‘make Poverty History’.
In March 2006 we held a ‘Fairtrade Sunday lunch’ to publicise the campaign and products. Although we already use Fairtrade tea and coffee for many of our events. One average the cost will be about 10% more than other products, but we are not limited to just one brand since over 100 companies produce Fairtrade goods.
Just to illustrate the difference this can make here is a story from Africa.
Kapasule is the first village in the Chikwawa district of Southern Malawi to benefit from the Fairtrade premium received by their Cane Growers’ association. Now local people have their own supply of clean, fresh water. Before the bore-hole was dug, women and children had to carry water in containers for a mile from a nearby village. The village chief explained that it is the first of many improvements planned for local villages, paid for with the Fairtrade premium *.
There are more than 50 people in the village. Only some of them are farming cane sugar, but all are benefiting from the water. They are always told that the money for this came from the sugar.
The very first thing that the people needed was water. Now we have one bore-hole. In the future I would like us to have three.
We have more plans for the future. We want to improve the local hospital and also build a community day secondary school, so that village children can get there easily.
We would like people in the UK to buy more than they are buying now. Since the village is poor, the more people buy our sugar, the more we can help our community.
* The Fairtrade price includes a premium which is set aside for farmers and workers to spend on social and environmental projects or to strengthen their organisations.
Fairtrade Lunch
Thank you to everyone who supported out Fairtrade lunch, we raised £100 for Fairtrade, plus sales on the stall. The Duke of Edinburgh's award group will run this each year from now.