Fairtrade in the Capital
After finding my way into the tardis like building that it London’s Guildhall I spent yesterday afternoon in the thick of Fairtrade action in London. Celebrating their 1st birthday as a Fairtrade city the Fairtrade London campaign held a workshop with activities, tastings, networking and presentations.
We were welcomed by Emma Bara and Rev George Bush of the Fairtrade Campaign in the City. Following these introductions Veronica Pasteur of the Fairtrade Foundation took on her role as member of the Fairtrade London Campaign and talked us through the successes of London in the past year. A number of events including the Fairtrade banana flash mob in Trafalgar Square, Farmers of the World Unite on May Day and Holland Park’s Environment Day were all mentioned as highlights of the campaign so far. All these events are ones at which Shared Interest also had a presence, showing we’re getting involved in the right places in the South East but we’re always looking for more opportunities. Hannah Reed then told us about the Fairtrade Towns work and the plans for 2009. One of the highlights was hearing a real case study from Zaytoun. Manal Ramadan told us about the progress made by Zaytoun in supporting Palestinian olive farmers and their achievement of gaining fair trade certification for their olive oil.
We had a discussion session around Fairtrade Fortnight 2010 in preparation for activites for ‘The Big Swap’ and the theme of tea. I’m not sure that a Fairtrade tea costume is going to be as easy as a Fairtrade banana costume was for last years’ events! Get your thinking caps on for suitable ‘tea’ themed events and ways to achieve the target of 1,000,001 people making ‘The Big Swap’.
We were treated to a tasting session by Cafedirect which was an eye opener. Similar to wine tasting we were encouraged to sample oranges and chocolate before tasting the coffee. Slurping is the best way to ‘taste’ the coffee and a room full of adults making such noises was certainly an entertaining highlight of the evening!
A workshop around the Fairtrade London Campaign discussed the soon to be launched website with interactive blogging pages for each London Borough. So get your blogging caps on and get writing about what’s going on with fair trade in your borough here. There will also be a ‘Best of Fairtrade’ interactive map where you can add your favourite local cafe, shop or venue supporting fair trade and write a few words about why you support it.
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