It's Fairtrade Fortnight and Fairtrade tea producer Vinay Devaiah was talking at the university last night about how fair Fairtrade really is - when the video is up on the website I'll add a link, although apparently it was the unfilmed question session afterwards that was really inspiring. He's staying over at our house for the next two nights although he has such a busy schedule I'm not sure how much I'll get to speak to him!
At Exclaimers as the fortnight opened we were using Traidcraft's resources for kids and their excellent short video about the impact of Fairtrade on people's lives - things we take for granted like education or a pension are dependent upon that Fairtrade premium. I'd brought along lots of different varieties of tea to talk about origins (the historian in me can never resist a quick lesson on such things) and for sampling. The overwhelming favourite among the children was, I'm afraid, not actually Fairtrade Foundation certified but it is from a small scale company that do do Fairtrade - vanilla rooibos. The Traidcraft campaign this year is to make the major tea sellers in this country turn truly fair trade, and the Exclaimers were enthusiastic at taking petitions around the congregation afterwards to achieve this.
I'm looking forward to celebrating Traidcraft's Big Brew myself this Saturday at the Living Hope: Green Churches, Green Schools event at Great Missenden. I'm leading a workshop there on how to become an Eco-congregation.
Without stealing his punchline, does Vinay give Fairtrade a thumbs up or thumbs down? Looking forward to the video.
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