This year’s Fairtrade Fortnight (February 25th to March 10th) was themed around cocoa production and also looked at the empowerment of female farmers – about a third of the producers of Divine Chocolate are women, so they deserve a say!
To celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight, Rainbow Turtle organised two schools conferences. For local primary school pupils, we arranged a visit to St Mirren Park, to hear from Bala Sport (who produce Fairtrade footballs), WOSDEC, St Mirren Women’s Football Club, and from Rainbow Turtle. It was a great day, with lots of learning about the work that goes into making a football, the benefits of Fairtrade for football workers, and also the parallel difficulties of being a female farmer/producer and a woman in sport. And the amazing news to come out of the event is that St Mirren WFC are now using Fairtrade footballs for their matches!
For secondary school pupils, Rainbow Turtle, in conjunction with the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, organised for Aimable Nshimiye, a coffee producer from Rwanda, to visit Mary Russell School and speak about his business and how becoming Fairtrade certified has helped them to grow. The Mary Russell pupils had thought up some interesting questions for Aimable in advance! Rainbow Turtle are very grateful to the Renfrewshire Fair Trade Steering Group for their support in organising this event, as well as the one at St Mirren Park.
Other activities which took place during Fairtrade Fortnight 2019 included a Fairtrade Bake Off at Gryffe High School, which we were lucky enough to be asked to help judge – look at those amazing cakes! The winner (which we don’t have a picture off because it was scoffed too quickly!) was judged to be best because of its delicious taste, its perfect appearance, and most importantly its high quantity of Fairtrade ingredients!
It was fantastic fortnight, and so encouraging to see the real engagement with Fairtrade Fortnight and the ideas of Fair Trade that so many local schools and organisations have!