FAB celebrates fairtrade fairmined gold

Members of FAB will be walking from Victoria Square to the Jewellery Quarter on Saturday 3rd March at midday to celebrate Fairmined Gold, a new and exciting development of ethical trade.  FAB is using the theme of Fairtrade Fortnight of “Make your step count” to follow the tourist trail of footsteps to the Jewellery Quarter and promote Fairmined Gold. They are being joined by Jewellery Quarter’s Cookson Gold and Weston Beamor who supply Fairmined Gold to the trade.

Fairtrade and Fairmined certified gold, the world's first independent ethical certification system for gold, will offer you the guarantee of a product which has been responsibly mined. All Fairtrade and Fairmined gold is mined from small-scale and artisan mines in a way that seeks to reduce dependence on harmful chemicals. Good news for mining communities in South America and good news for the people who live and mine there. Look carefully and you'll find the Fairtrade and Fairmined stamp on the inside of every piece.

'I think that Fairtrade is going to help us to sell our gold at the right price and we will be better paid. It will also help the environment.' Gina Dávila, mineral sorter, Sotrami Mine.

FAB have been supporting a range of promotional events throughout Fairtrade Fortnight to promote ethical trade and encourage people of Birmingham and the West Midlands to support retailers who sell Fairtrade goods.

John Boyle Chair of FAB:

“ this celebratory walk is a simple step toward making peoples lives better, by encouraging people in the UK to shop with their heart they will benefit those who have no choices due to their absolute poverty.”

For further information please contact:
John Boyle
07736792518
john.boyle@midlands.coop

The Sustainability Spring fair

Carrs Lane Fair Trade Shop

Int'l Dev Secretary praises Wolverhampton’s fairtrade pioneers

Andrew Mitchell, International Development Secretary, is today visiting Wolverhampton
to taste fairtrade coffee from the city’s new pioneers of fair and ethical trading, Revolver
World, ahead of Fairtrade Fortnight later this month.

Meeting Revolver with the Mayor of Wolverhampton, Bert Turner, and the Executive
Director of the Fairtrade Foundation, Harriet Lamb, Andrew Mitchell said:

“Revolver has proved that fair and ethical trading can be both good for British business
and can transform the lives of the poorest. Making a small change to your weekly shop,
like buying Revolver’s superb Fairtrade coffee can make a real difference to those who
farm these everyday essentials. You are also supporting an iconic local company. I’m
delighted that Wolverhampton is leading the way in bringing new, commercially successful
ways to tackle global poverty.

The visit comes ahead of Fairtrade Fortnight, which highlights that fairtrade goods can
guarantee farmers and producers in the poorest countries receive a fair price for their
produce and boosting their families’ income. The British Government supports the
Fairtrade Foundation to help bring similar promising products to British customers.

Paul Birch, Managing Director of Revolver World said:
"Customers know they can make a difference to the lives of people they will never meet,
when making decisions about what they place into their shopping baskets. Music may
have the power to change people's lives, but we at Revolver Records wanted to do
something more tangible - we're working with famers in Uganda and Tanzania to make
Fairtrade coffee, and cotton growers in India to help us make Fairtrade clothes, all of which
helps them to escape poverty."

Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation said: ‘By supporting
businesses who work in a fair and ethical way with small-holder producers in developing
countries, the government is helping farmers to earn a sustainable living. It’s great to see
Andrew Mitchell encouraging businesses to behave responsibly by creating stronger links
with those farmers and workers on whom they depend.

“Fairtrade is a living example of responsible capitalism – both enabling businesses here to
take a step towards tackling poverty, and a means for smallholders in developing countries
to build their own businesses.’

Useful links:

1. Find out more about how DFID supports Fairtrade here: http://projects.dfid.gov.uk/

Fairtrade working with Sports relief

There is an exciting opportunity for Fairtrade Towns and Cities to get involved with the Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile flagship events taking place in one of the following locations on Sunday 25^th March:


London 
Manchester 
Edinburgh 
Glasgow 
Belfast 
Cardiff 
Plymouth 
Southampton 
Brighton and Hove 
Milton Keynes 
Bristol 
Birmingham 
Nottingham 
Norwich 
Leeds 
Hull 
Newcastle 
Gateshead


Fairtrade groups in these locations have been offered the chance to take part by having some kind some of Fairtrade presence, eg holding a stall at each of the Sport Relief Flagship events.


Further details can be found on the Sports Relief website at the following link: http://www.sportrelief.com/the-mile#tab3


This offer does provide a great opportunity to Take a Step for Fairtrade beyond Fairtrade Fortnight in 2012.  But time is running short so if you feel able to take that additional step (or should I say go that extra mile?) for Fairtrade Fortnight this year then please contact me as soon as possible and we shall be delighted to send on further details.


Bruce Crowther Fairtrade Towns Advisor Fairtrade Foundation

Normal working hours: 8am - 4pm Mon, Thurs and Fri.

Tel: 01995 601258

Mobile: 07866 541940

Fair trade to Climate Change

As a former employee of Shared Earth, (a fair trading company), which has gone to liquidation on the 16th January 2012, I would like to take this opportunity to give my honest overview of the state of our high street activity and how, despite our setback, fair trade can still and will continue to bring positive changes in terms of reducing our carbon footprint and bringing an equality in terms of addressing poverty and trade imbalance.

People say that this recession is the worst they have seen in their lifetime. We are curbing our spending, rightly so, and one can see the result on the high street as one shop falls after the other like a pack of cards. We are surely in a dire state of affairs and lot of policy changes have to be made if we are to come out strong and healthy in a couple of years. But we need to see things in perspective. Despite our so called recession, we are still far better off than millions in the developing world who still don’t have access to proper education, clean drinking water, hygienic sanitation and so on.

For example in India, probably only one third of the population is in the organised sector while the rest has to survive with atrocious working conditions, earning below the ‘living’ wage. Parents still have to send their children to work on the streets or factories where there are no safety measures in place. Kids have to put up with back breaking ten to fourteen hours a day with no proper breaks and a normal childhood snatched away from their grasp. There is no social security net in place (which I am enjoying now) if one looses work, so the impact is unimaginable. That means a child could go hungry overnight, quitting school, as you still have to pay for books, pens and paper.  Psychological repercussions for the parent are immense and one can easily become a victim of sleazy exploitation.

We have to think, what kind of society we want? Do we want a self centred society where we think of our own good, or we build a culture where we share our resources in a humanitarian way. We have a duty to our fellow beings whether they are from our own local community or an impoverished community in a different geographical location. Fair and ethical trade answers a lot of difficult questions. It’s not fool proof by any stretch of imagination but it, at least, recognises the problem and does something positive about it. There have been recent articles that tried to castigate the fair trade movement and highlighting all the evils associated with it.

It’s understandable that the words ‘fair’ and ‘ethics’ means different things to different people but fundamentally it tries to do good.  Fair and ethical trade is also about using our resources in a sustainable way. By using less water, generating less waste, promoting sustainable transportation and boosting self reliance in food and energy, we can go on a long way in tackling climate change, that could have a devastating effect on the planet.

There has been a paradigm shift the way we see our lives in the wake of global warming. Whatever we do in our daily lives, we do depend on non renewable fossil fuels from driving cars to printing paper. Although we cannot go back to pre-industrial age, we can do things to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Scientific evidence shows that global temperature has risen over the past century and more acutely in the last couple of decades. Fair Trade answers a lot of these questions as well as most non food products are handmade with minimal factory production, which in turn has a very low CO2 emission rate. Climate change is increasingly recognised as a major challenge and it’s apt we take a note of it. With regards to fuel usage, vehicle usage, electricity bill, employee travel and sourcing stocks from other countries we can ensure that the whole process emits the minimum greenhouse gases as possible.  And the way to go forward is to have fairness in the heart of our business principles.

Other links:


Fair trade shop Shared Earth to close Birmingham store as company faces liquidation