Fairtrade Yorkshire

The latest addition to Fairtrade Yorkshire’s growing network of local groups is Fairtrade Halifax.

The group was brought together by Halifax’s recently elected MP, Holly Lynch and Calderdale Councillor, Adam Wilkinson.  The first meeting was held at Halifax Town Hall and representatives attended from Calderdale Council, Lloyd’s, Fairtrade wholesaler, Suma and Traidcraft.  Local activists joined together with the Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayoress of Calderdale to celebrate the launch of the group.

Holly Lynch opened the meeting which was addressed by Coordinator of Fairtrade Yorkshire, Mark Dawson and Helen Robinson from FairandFunky and Fairtrade Kirklees.  Mark stated; ‘it’s fantastic that we have this new group in Halifax and we look forward to working with Calderdale Council and local employers such as Lloyds, Nestle and Suma, as well as with small businesses.  The group has a great opportunity to promote fairness and justice for all the producers and farmers that provide us with the goods that we enjoy.  Welcome to the newest addition to our family.’

The Deputy Mayoress of Calderdale, Holly Lynch MP and the Deputy Mayor of Calderdale

Holme Valley Fairtrade was named runner-up at the Annual Fairtrade Campaign Awards.  The group was awarded second place for Best Media Campaign at the Fairtrade Foundation’s National Supporter Conference in London last weekend.

The group was recognised for their commitment to raising awareness about the principles and values of Fairtrade in their local community during Fairtrade Fortnight 2015, a highlighted campaign for the grassroots movement in the UK.

During Fairtrade Fortnight 2015 Holme Valley Fairtrade members, Social Progress displayed a 5ft inflatable Fairtrade Banana and Mug of Fairtrade Tea outside their Honley Bridge Office. Within 48 hours the banana went missing so they launched the “#MissingBanana” campaign. Through the various channels of social media and a few tongue-in-cheek posters, they called upon the help of the locals as well as Honley High School. Within another 48 hours students from the school spotted the banana in the river! The campaign was an opportunity to turn something negative into something positive. We’re pleased to say that it helped to raise the profile of Fairtrade and Fairtrade Fortnight through the use of the hashtags #FairtradeFortnight and #FairtradeMatters on social media – and the story reached the local press too!

On receiving the award, Helen Robinson from the Holme Valley Fairtrade group said: “We are so proud and excited to be runners up for the award – so much so that you’d think we came first! The best thing to come out of the #MissingBanana campaign is a new partnership with the High School, we’re looking forward to working together in Fairtrade Fortnight 2016, and maybe actually WIN next year!”
Adam Gardner, Communities Campaigns Manager at the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “We are very grateful to the Holme Valley Fairtrade Group for their valuable support to farmers and workers around the globe who are continuously working hard to bring us the products we love. All too often these communities are not receiving a fair price for their work, but campaigners from the Holme Valley have shown their dedication to this cause. It’s so important for communities to get involved and let their voice be heard.

“Thanks to the ongoing support of campaigners and businesses around the UK, including campaigners from the Holme Valley Fairtrade today reaches millions of vulnerable farmers and workers in over 70 countries.”

The one day conference in London brought together campaigners from across the UK, Fairtrade producers and experts in global development. The day featured a sneak peek into the Fairtrade Foundation’s 2016-2020 strategy, innovative and informative workshops and the launch of Fairtrade Fortnight 2016, among many other items.

Fairtrade has paved the way for sustainable trading by providing a safety net for world’s poorest farmers against volatile market prices, and the Fairtrade Premium to invest in vital community, business and environmental projects.

The UK has one of the most powerful networks of Fairtrade campaigners in the world, including over 600 Fairtrade Towns, 1350 Fairtrade Schools and 170 Fairtrade Universities, and 7,500 Fairtrade places of worship.

One of the first Fairtrade schools in Kirklees: Holme Junior and Infant School are putting together their application for Fairtrade Status renewal, and launched their campaign with a Fairtrade Coffee Afternoon for the parents and the community at the start of the new school term.

The children at Holme School know a lot about Fairtrade and were involved in every stage of the event; Reception children designed and decorated Fairtrade themed bunting, Key Stage 2 children designed brilliant posters to promote the event around the community. Working with the school cook, Class One made the cakes and biscuits for the event and proudly described the Fairtrade ingredients to visiting parents.

Throughout the afternoon parents were welcomed into busy Fairtrade focussed classrooms and invited to create the Fairtrade logo for themselves using recycled materials, or take part in a Geography activity to map Fairtrade or even use the school iPads for market research into the major supermarkets commitment to Fairtrade.

Alongside the Fairtrade refreshments the students and teachers were joined by fairandfunky with a pop-up shop to launch their rice challenge. Year 6 children helped on the fairandfunky pop-up shop, selling Fairtrade gifts to fellow students and parents using impressive mental maths as their customers all clamoured for attention at the same time!

Fairtrade is embedded into life at the school from the cups of tea in the staff room, ingredients in the school kitchen, to the footballs used by the children at playtime. Fairtrade rice and chocolate packaging is used to teach art, and Fairtrade chocolate becomes a focus for cross curricular learning with Class 2. “We’re a small school making a big difference,” says head teacher Mrs Anne Swain, “our strong links with local and global communities really enrich children’s experiences. We’re very excited to have Fairtrade at the heart of our learning in this way.”

The Fairtrade Yorkshire Regional Conference took place last weekend and was the best-attended Fairtrade Yorkshire event so far. Campaigners were buoyed by the announcement of two new towns campaigning for Fairtrade status: Selby and Halifax. Over 70 supporters including both of York’s MPs as well as MEP Linda McAvan.

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Chair of the Town Council, John Garvani and the Steering Group

On 18th September Horsforth celebrated its declaration as a Fairtrade Town with a party at St. Margaret’s Parish Centre.  Chair of Fairtrade Yorkshire, Hannah Langdana, introduced a cocoa game and FTY Coordinator, Mark Dawson congratulated the town stating that ‘ a Fairtrade Horsforth is a stronger Horsforth.’  Chair of the Fairtrade Steering Group, Rev Matt Wright, of Lister Hill Baptist, gave a rousing speech thanking all the people who had made Horsforth Fairtrade Town possible including local schools and the Town Council.  The Chair of the Town Council cut the huge celebratory cake and a buffet was enjoyed courtesy of Morrisons supermarket.

Rev Matt Wright, John Garvani and Cllr. Janice Pritlove outside St. Margaret’s Parish Centre.

Chair of the Town Council, John Garvani cuts the cake

Matthew Temple, Duty Manager and Sarah Marston, Community Champion of Horsforth Morrisons.

Skipton has renewed its Fairtrade Town status and taken on the 90kg rice challenge. Your community could do the same! The challenge is to sell 90kg of fairly traded brown and/or white rice – the amount of rice sold that would enable a Malawian farmer pay for a year’s basic secondary education for one child in Malawi, where only 1 in 3 children can go to high school because their parents can’t afford to send them.

Read more about the rice challenge.

Thanks to your support, over 1.5 million farmers and workers in 74 countries are now part of Fairtrade – which stands for changing the way trade works, through fair prices and better working conditions, to offer a more stable future for farming communities.

Together we’ve made great progress – but we need to go further. We need your help.
The interests and livelihoods of many Fairtrade farmers and workers, and many more outside of Fairtrade, continue to be undermined by unfair subsidies, unreasonable regulations, self-interested trade tariffs and one-sided trade deals – supported by the UK government. These deals prop up British and European interests, but they often do little for – and sometimes actively harm – poor farmers and workers. They block them from building up their businesses, force them out of markets and leave them unable to sell their produce.
This September, UK Prime Minister David Cameron will take to the global stage at the UN, backing new targets to end global poverty and reduce inequality, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The government is keen to show trade as a way for poor countries to tackle poverty – and as we know, the right kind of trade is a powerful way to lift people out of poverty.
The SDGs are a unique opportunity to call for fairer, more sustainable trade. Otherwise, it’s a case of giving with one hand and taking with the other.
We need government rhetoric to be backed by reality. We need the poor to come first in trade. It is only by doing this that trade will improve lives and livelihoods in a truly sustainable way.
Please ask your MP to raise this issue with the Prime Minister and demand he acts now to make trade fair.

More details: show your hand campaign

A ten strong delegation from Yorkshire attended the International Fair Trade Towns conference in Bristol (3rd-5th July).

Yorkshire delegates in front of the conference logo display created by Holmfirth’s ‘Fair and Funky.’

Representatives from Fair Trade towns attended from across Europe, Africa, Latin America, North America and Asia.

There are currently 1647 Fair Trade Towns in 27 countries but thousands more are working towards Fair Trade status, for example the Yorkshire contingent met with Mayors from the Lebanon.  Fair Trade Lebanon are planning for the declaration of 10 Fair Trade Towns within the next year.

The founding father of the Fair Trade Towns movement, Bruce Crowther reminded the conference attendees of the humble origins of the initiative.  The first meeting to plan the campaign for the world’s first Fair Trade Town was attended by just three people, Bruce, his wife and their babysitter.

The Fair Trade Town concept was an idea whose time had come and there has been rapid expansion in recent years.  The vibrancy of the conference, attended by more than 250 delegates attested to the enthusiasm for linking communities across the globe.

Ashraf Hamad, from York St. John University chats to Sam Chaher of Fairtrade Reading.

Speakers at the conference included:

Yorkshire MEP, Linda McAvan, who is the Chair of the European Parliament International Development Committee.

Fatima Ismael of Soppexcca Cooperative, Nicaragua

Harriet Lamb, CEO of Fairtrade International

Hazel Culley from Marks and Spencer.

Joanna Pollard, from Selby, and chair of the British Association of Fair Trade Shops (BAFTS) lead a discussion for Fair Trade retailers and Mark Dawson, coordinator of Fairtrade Yorkshire, lead a discussion on Fair Trade and faith groups.

On 17th June Fairtrade supporters joined with Climate Coalition partners (including Christian Aid, Greenpeace, Oxfam and WWF) to lobby their MP’s for more action to combat climate change.  The mass lobby took place at the Houses of Parliament in London.

The goal of the coalition is 100% clean, safe energy by 2050, to protect both people and nature.

Matt Wright of Fairtrade Horsforth and Mark Dawson, Coordinator of Fairtrade Yorkshire at the climate lobby

The world’s poorest communities are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, unable to afford adaptation strategies.  They are also the least to blame for the change in climate caused by rising CO2 emissions.

The benefits Fairtrade has brought to smallholder farmers and poor communities across the globe could be lost because of the changing climate.  Farmers in developing countries are already experiencing the detrimental effects of a changing climate leading to lower crop yields.

Constituents told their MP’s to:

Make it clean – we need to get all out energy from clean sources

Make it fair – support developing countries hardest hit by climate change

Make it work – for the sake of people and the environment – locally, nationally and globally.

The UK can play a pivotal role in obtaining a global climate deal at the UN climate conference in Paris in December, agreeing action to limit the rise in global temperature and delivering climate finance for developing countries.

Richard Lane, Communications Officer of Fairtrade Yorkshire, adds his message to the display in Lambeth Palace Gardens.

Horsforth has become Yorkshire’s newest Fairtrade Town.  The town on the north western edge of Leeds fulfilled all five goals in order to be awarded Fairtrade status.  The Fairtrade Town campaign, coordinated by Baptist Minister, Rev Matt Wright, engaged with all sections of the community, including community groups, workplaces, businesses and the local media.

Horsforth campaign group at the Farmers’ Market

The Town Council was supportive and Councillor Janice Pritlove acted as the Council’s representative on the Fairtrade Steering Group that campaigned to achieve the status.  Churches Together in Horsforth also took up the baton to help the town to make this amazing achievement.  Many events were held in the run up to the status being awarded, including regular stalls at the Horsforth Farmers’ Market.  Matt Wright’s culinary skills were put to the test at a pancake making event and local MP Stuart Andrew came to the market to support the Fairtrade campaign.

Rev Matt Wright

Coordinator of Fairtrade Yorkshire, Mark Dawson, congratulated Matt and the group on their success.  “I know how much work has gone into this campaign and Matt and the team deserve to be thanked for everything they have done to make Horsforth a Fair Trade Town.  Horsfordians have reason to be thoroughly proud.”