FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT - WHAT DID YOU SWAP?

This year's theme for Fairtrade Fortnight (22 February – 7 March) was The Big Swap. Everyone was being encouraged to swap at least one item from their normal shopping basket for a Fairtrade brand. The aim was to get 1 million people nationwide to make a Fairtrade swap – and over 1 million people did!!!!

Whitehall School took part in The Big Swap, with a prize for the class where the most families had taken part. There was also a visit from a cocoa farmer from Ghana who grows fairly traded cocoa for Divine chocolate. He told the children how Fairtrade has made a great difference to farmers and their families, with improvements in living standards, health and education Since the first Fairtrade product, Mexican coffee, was launched in 1988, the range of available products has increased enormously. Some big companies such as Cadburys and Starbucks now use Fairtrade ingredients and some major supermarkets carry a large range. As well as bananas, tea, coffee and chocolate you can now buy flowers, sugar, beer and wine, clothes and even footballs!

As well as paying a decent price for all the farmers' hard work, Fairtrade guarantees better working conditions, employment rights, and bans certain agricultural chemicals, protecting humans and the environment. Shockingly, one-third of the world's population - 2 billion people - still have to exist on less than $2 a day. Fairtrade products only cost the consumer a little more (and sometimes are the same price!) But they make an enormous difference to producers in less affluent countries.