The Scottish Fair Trade Forum’s crowdfunding campaign to help Fair Trade suppliers in Scotland (like us!) survive these difficult times is about to go into its final week and still has a bit to go to meet their goal. Can you help at all? Fair Trade suppliers in Scotland play a critical role for justice, equity and sustainability in trade and even the smallest of donations will help us all to continue supporting producers in need.
It’s Volunteers’ Week this week, a time to celebrate the amazing contribution volunteers make and giving an opportunity to say thank you. The Rainbow Turtle shop and charity wouldn’t be able to function without our enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers, and we really do thank each and every one of you for everything that you do. Even though Rainbow Turtle isn’t able to carry out most of what we do right now, our volunteers are still keeping our spirits up with their lovely emails and video chats, and lots of ideas for the future. Thank you!
Under more normal circumstances we would have organised something this week to thank our volunteers properly – last year we had a lovely night of sandwiches, cake, and chatter! – but of course that’s not possible right now. We hope to be back together very soon, and we can postpone our celebrations until then.
We were asked by the Scottish Fair Trade Forum to choose a photo that represents why we’re so commited to Fair Trade, and why their crowdfunding appeal is so important to us. This picture is from Fairtrade Fortnight 2020, and shows the day Colum (our Director), Gemma (our Shop Manager and Education Officer), and Clotilde (one of our enthusiastic volunteers) had the pleasure of meeting Ndiuzayani Zaya and Aubrey Meki Chilenje from the Fairtrade Certified Kasinthula Cane Growers Association in Malawi. Ndiuzayani spoke about her mother’s work as a farmer with the Fair Trade sugar association; thanks to its certification, all of Ndiuzayani’s education was funded by the Fairtrade Premium. Aubrey also talked about his membership with the Association, their work with Fairtrade and what it had done to help improve livelihoods in the community through healthcare, clean water and other projects to alleviate poverty. Both of them did not shy away from speaking of the challenges of making a profitable living from sugar, though. It was an incredibly powerful experience to meet them and hear their stories, and we’re proud of Rainbow Turtle’s commitment to selling Divine Chocolate who buy their sugar from Kasinthula.
The Scottish Fair Trade Forum have today launched a Crowdfunder to raise money for Fair Trade suppliers and retailers, ourselves included, to give us a better chance of surviving the Coronavirus pandemic. As most of you will know, we’ve had to close the shop entirely during these worrying times and so we’ve lost a lot of money and our future is currently insecure. The SFTF say:
Fair Trade suppliers across Scotland are the backbone of our campaign for justice, equity and sustainability in trade. Today, we are launching a fundraising appeal to support them through these difficult times. Can you help us support them? Any contribution, no matter how small, will make real differences to keeping Fair Trade shops and suppliers alive in our communities.
To donate, visit the Crowdfunder page here. We know that finances are tight for most of us right now, but a contribution of any size will help us, and other Fair Trade shops and suppliers like us in Scotland, to come out the other side of this in a better position. In doing so we’ll also be able to do more to support the producers – the real reason that we do any of this – by placing orders for goods like we normally would. Even just sharing the Crowdfunder will help a great deal. Thank you!
World Fair Trade Day is approaching on Saturday 9th May, but of course with the current lockdown most of the planned events will not be going ahead or will be taking a different form. There are, however, lots of activities and events that you can take part in from home:
The Scottish Fair Trade Forum are running a poster or video competition for school aged children, which might be a good activity to include in your home learning in the coming weeks. The submission deadline is 31st May, and you can find more information, and some other activity ideas, here.
This year the focus for World Fair Trade Day is #PlanetFairTrade, a very relevant theme as the World Fair Trade Organisation state:
Fair Trade Enterprises are a vision of hope and perseverance. In good days and in bad, they stand with their producers, workers and trading partners. They work in solidarity to get through the lockdown and pandemic. Now, more than ever, we can see why we need a world full of Fair Trade Enterprises. This is #PlanetFairTrade.
The global economy was already broken. A climate and ecological crisis was already brewing, alongside spiralling inequality and entrenched poverty. The pandemic has shaken the economic system, and we can together create a better world. Fair Trade Enterprises are helping create an economy based on human and planetary well-being, a world where no one is left behind. Join us to make planet Fair Trade a reality.
The WFTO have lots of ideas for activities for everyone, young and old, here, including a campaign to #StayHomeLiveFair and post your support to social media. The WFTO’s Instagram will be broadcasting live chats and Q&A sessions with experts in fair trade and sustainability.
Have you noticed anything different about our website recently? Maybe that there aren’t adverts anymore? Thanks to the hard work of our director, Colum Scriven, and his friend Alan, we’ve finally got our dot-org-dot-uk web address back! It had been feared lost to hackers some time ago, and we had been using a temporary address ever since, but we’re now back in business. So if anyone asks you where to go for information on Rainbow Turtle (especially as our shop is sadly closed until further notice) then direct them to www.rainbowturtle.org.uk for the most up to date info! If you’re subscribed to our newsletter, which collates these blogs once a month, you’ll still receive this as normal. If you aren’t yet subscribed to our blog you can join here.
It’s Fashion Revolution Week right now, running from the 20th until the 26th April 2020, but what does that mean? Well, the clothing industry has a lot of problems, affecting both people and the environment. The Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, in which more than 1000 garment workers died due to unsafe conditions, inspired the start of Fashion Revolution who campaign against these issues.
Fashion is also one of the most dangerous industries for the environment, meaning that its problems have the potential to affect everyone. The statistics below reveal the extent of just some of these shocking issues.
This week, Fashion Revolution are working to make sure that as many people as possible know about what goes on within the clothing industry. This includes putting on many events, which are all taking place online due to the current circumstances and can be found here. They have also published an updated Fashion Transparency Index so you can see just how ethical your favourite clothing brand is from the comfort of your home. Another piece of easy activism you can do from home is to use social media to ask companies:
We’re back to school after the Easter holidays this week, although of course “school” is a lot different now. So if you’re a parent or carer looking for some interesting ways to get Fair Trade into your kids’ education, here are some more ideas. You can read our first post on this subject here.
Fashion Revolution week 2020 begins today, and is a week to reflect on the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, as well as look at the problems, both human and environmental, within the clothing industry today. Fashion Revolution have lots of fun activities for young learners, which can be found here.
If your children are looking for ways to explore their creativity, Divine Chocolate and Christian Aid have the competition for you. They’re asking young people aged 7 and over to write poems on the theme of Where does the chocolate journey begin? There are tasty prizes and the completion closing date isn’t until 5th June so you’ve still got plenty of time to get started. You can find out more here.
For younger learners, the Fairtrade Foundation have produced some home learning activities on the theme of Pablo the Super-Banana, a super fun character! They also want everyone to share their home learning with the hashtag #FairtradeTogether on social media. We’d love to be tagged in any posts too so that we can see the amazing work everyone is doing!
Since it could be a while until you get to see it in person, we thought that we’d have a virtual reveal of our newly updated Rainbow Turtle shop front!
This work was completed just before the current government restrictions came into effect by the lovely Gerry and his workers, and we were so pleased and grateful to receive grants from Renfrewshire Council to pay for this work to get Rainbow Turtle looking sharp again.
We hope to see you all in the shop again very soon!
Happy Easter from all of us at Rainbow Turtle. It was a very strange one this year, but we hope you all managed to celebrate it with family or friends in some way. Easter weekend would usually be a really busy weekend in the shop, with everyone rushing in to buy the last of our Fair Trade eggs and cards, but sadly this year the Rainbow Turtle shop remains closed. We did manage to sell lots of our eggs before we shut up shop, and the few that we do have left will be donated to good causes in the local area. As one of our wise volunteers said to me recently: Easter is a moveable feast and we’ll celebrate it properly when we can.
