Many congratulations to Ireland Wood Primary School in Leeds who are the worthy winners of the Fairtrade Yorkshire Film competition of 2013.

See below for the videos from all the finalists including champions Ireland Wood.

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Penistone Scouts are teaming up with fairandfunky for World Fairtrade Day in a timely Fairtrade workshop.

“Time for Fairtrade” gets children and young people talking about Fairtrade and food: from growers and producers to the kitchen table. In this popular fairandfunky workshop children find out about Fairtrade issues, and discover how they can take little steps to change the world.

Following role play and discussion the scouts will each create their own clock using recycled materials to take away. To show it is “Time for Fairtrade”; and share the message of Fairtrade.

For more information about fairandfunky and their interactive workshops head to www.fairandfunky.com

During the middle of February, after a year and a half of hard work, Skipton Girls’ High School achieved Fairtrade School Status. The first school in Skipton to be awarded this! Mrs Brailsford and the Fairtrade Friends team have been working together since September 2011, promoting Fairtrade within the school and local community. The students have worked brilliantly together, sacrificing free periods and lunchtimes to have meetings and run events.

A stunning Fairtrade fruit bowl

Now the school has Fairtrade Status, the group has to continue and build on previous activities, as well as aim to introduce it in new subject areas. Since September 2012, the Fairtrade Friends have organised the very successful Fairtrade Fashion Show, baked and sold Fairtrade goodies, and ran a Fairtrade Stall at the Christmas Concert.

During this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight, the Friends worked with Greatwood Primary School. At first, they were quite nervous about running activities with the young students. However, once in the classroom, their confidence and enthusiasm shone through, and they received praise from the teachers they worked alongside.

The Friends split into two teams. The first team worked with Year 2, and spent one session introducing Fairtrade and producing Fairtrade fruit bowls, and the second session designing new Fairtrade chocolate bars with the students. The second team worked with Year 5, and spent their first session producing Fairtrade footprints and flags of Fairtrade producing countries, and the second session running the Fairtrade cocoa bean game. The artwork produced by the primary school students were put on display at their Fairtrade coffee morning for their parents and the local community to see.

During Fairtrade Fortnight Holmfirth based business fairandfunky teamed up with The Co-operative Pioneer to host exclusive workshops with schools and shoppers.

The focus of this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight campaign for 2013 was food, and the challenge from The Fairtrade Foundation was to get creative with Fairtrade packaging. So fairandfunky did.

During the fairandfunky schools workshops, over 60 children were taken Fairtrade Sleuthing around the supermarket, before creating Fairtrade Super Hero masks from recycled Fairtrade packaging.

Children were treated to delicious Fairtrade fruit and as they tucked in they learnt that they have the power to change the world by buying and eating Fairtrade fruit. They are Fairtrade super heroes.

The children were then invited to draw round their hand and cut it out to decorate the giant Fairtrade farmer. This they loved, and many returned later in the week to find their hand, tell their parents, and then go shopping for Fairtrade products.

The invitation to “lend a hand” continued in two drop in workshops for every day shoppers, which included local MP Jason McCartney. The result: a GIANT Fairtrade farmer.

The workshops were possible thanks to funding from the West Yorkshire Co-operative Area Committee.

fairandfunky is a local Community Interest Company Co-founded by Helen Robinson and Sophie Bebb. Empowering people to take little steps to change the world, fairandfunky delivers interactive and creative workshops on global themes to schools and community groups. They also sell fair and funky products at www.fairandfunky.com.

Creative youngsters at St. John’s church in Ben Rhydding have made their contribution to ‘altar’ the way we trade.

Challenged by the Fairtrade Foundation to use Fairtrade packaging to create works of art, the children of Ben Rhydding designed and created this beautiful altar cloth.

Worshippers at the church will be reminded of the need for fairness and justice in trade.

Well done to the St. John’s youth group for all their hard work and creativity.

We are running a competition for schools across Yorkshire to celebrate the messages of Fairtrade and Yorkshire becoming the UK’s first Fairtrade region.

How: Schools/youth groups create a short, eye-catching, fun film (up to 2 minutes long) promoting the message of Fairtrade. You can use pictures, props, animation or puppets to communicate! The content of the film is up to you, but we are interested in exploring links between Yorkshire and Fairtrade.

When: Fairtrade Fortnight 2013 (25th Feb to 10th March)

What? One idea would be to think of something that is seen to be from Yorkshire (eg Yorkshire tea) and explore how ‘Yorkshire’ it really is. Or explore Yorkshire identity, how does Yorkshire today compare with the stereotypes about Yorkshire? What does becoming the first Fairtrade region say about ‘Yorkshire values’ and Yorkshire’s relationship with the rest of the world? What has Yorkshire brought to the world (inventions, Olympics, famous people)? How do we feel becoming the first Fairtrade region?

For more ideas and inspiration, try the Fairtrade Foundation website www.fairtrade.org.uk or pop into Leeds DEC to look at our vast range of teaching resources related to Fairtrade.

Closing date: Friday March 15th

Prize £200 and Fairtrade hamper and Certificate awarded at your school/ special event

Next steps: Upload your film to Youtube and send the link to Hannah@leedsdec.org.uk. Finalists will be selected and links uploaded to the Fairtrade Yorkshire website www.fairtradeyorkshire.org.uk . Public voting will start from Friday 22nd March to Monday 22nd April. The film with the most ‘likes’ wins!

Conditions: Please ensure all films comply with your Child Protection policies

Schools from across North Yorkshire came together for the annual Fairtrade in schools event organised by the Centre for Global Education and York Fair Trade Forum.  Pupils and teachers were able to meet Fairtrade activists and retailers and hear a key note speech from Amy Trumpeter of Kigali Crafts.  Amy’s business imports and retails fairly traded crafts and fashion accessories from Rwanda, a country still recovering from bitter civil war.

Pupils from Scarborough’s St. Martin Church of England School

The Sheriff of York was robed up and ready to present the Fairtrade in Yorkshire school awards, in recognition of those schools that have gone the extra mile in encouraging the use of Fairtrade products in school and in the wider community.  Some of the teachers present received Global Education awards from the Centre for Global Education, marking the  completion of a recognised training course. Read the rest of this entry »

Lord Mayor of Leeds Cllr Ann Castle and children from local schools showing their support for Fairtrade Yorkshire

Children from 14 schools across Leeds gathered together at the Civic Hall to celebrate their fair trade work and pledge their support for Fairtrade Yorkshire. The Fair trade School Celebration was opened by the Lord Mayor Cllr Ann Castle and attended by visiting teachers from Germany, Austria and Leeds’ partner city Brno in the Czech Republic.

Hannah Dalrymple, organiser of the event and Chair of Fairtrade Yorkshire said “Yorkshire is well on its way to becoming the first region in the UK to attain Fairtrade status. It’s really exciting to see so much excellent and creative work going on in Leeds schools to raise awareness about fair trade issues, and so inspiring to hear from teachers across Europe who are pioneering similar work in their own countries.”

The event was organised to help schools share good ideas about teaching and learning about fair trade issues and celebrate their achievements. Activities included presentations from schools, animation workshops and Fairtrade Yorkshire rosette making.

Schools that attended were Adel Primary, Ireland Wood, Otley All Saints, Bankside Primary, St Marys Menston, Wykebeck Primary School, Southroyd Primary, St. Chad’s Primary School, Prince Henry’s Grammar School, Allerton C of E Primary, NWSILC, Harehills Primary.

An Otley school has won our regional film competition and was presented with an award on Monday 28^th May by Greg Mulholland MP. The ‘Take a Step’ film competition was organised by Fairtrade Yorkshire and launched during this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight.

Greg Mulholland MP with winning Saints

The challenge was to tell the story about the journey of a Fairtrade product. The winners are from Otley All Saints School, who created an informative and interesting film about the journey of cocoa, from grower to chocolate bar.  Scarlet Hannan-Webber, one of the pupils involved in the film, said “It was so interesting because we got to learn more details about Fairtrade products. Our team was so co-operative and everyone really enjoyed being creative and thinking outside the box!”

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With stories on Fairtrade Fortnight across the county, the April 2012 edition of the “Fair Enough” newsletter for Fairtrade Schools in West Yorkshire is now available: Fair Enough – April 2012 (PDF).