Millbank Primary School
Growing Together To Be Our Best
* Fairtrade
On Thursday 25th November we visited our local FAIR TRADE CENTRE in Canton, this is part of FAIR DO'S/SIOPA TEG a wonderful little shop that sells Fairtrade gifts, clothes food and other products to the public. But you can tell they are really passionate about their work and encourage other people to take part too. They invited members of Green Gang to come along and set up a Fairtrade Stall at the Christmas Fayre. Tomorrow our friends from Windsor Clive are doing the same thing, in fact every day one school or another is visiting and trying to promote Fairtrade.
Jan showed us some of the wonderful stock she had and kindly made us a lovely rich cup of hot chocolate to keep us warm. We even had some fairtrade cookies too!
If you have had a cup of tea over the past few years at Millbank it has probably been a Fairtrade tea or coffee. Like most schools we are keen to promote the issue, its not just about the environmental benefits (Fairtrade farms are encouraged to use organic methods rather than nasty pesticides etc.) It is about Fairness, which is what we want for everyone, our Ambassadors recently visited the Equality & Human Rights Commission in Wales and that was all about Fairness and letting people work. We want people in developing nations to have a fair chance to access markets in the UK without being exploited.
We noticed that there was a collection box for the Foodbank in Cardiff, and again that clearly demonstrated that they were interested in helping people in the UK as well as around the world. Even when we washed up our cups we noticed that it was Eco friendly washing liquid.
With our partner schools in Kenya we were keen to see products from that Country, Jan showed us some smashing gifts from Kenya carved out of soapstone, and some lovely jewelry, we all liked the porcupine quills in one necklace so pretty so clever.
FAIRTRADE has been promoted in the school for many years. It was the 5th question the children asked in the interview with theCommissioner for Sustainable Development in Wales so we know some of our talk has has an effect. We would never demand that you use Fairtrade uniforms or insist on Fairtrade products but we do ask that you at least consider buying Fairtrade products. We would certainly recommend that you visit the FAIR DO'S shop in Canton next to the Canton Pub on Llandaff Road, there is plenty of parking and they have some lovely gifts for all pockets.
We have also used our weekly parents newsletter to try and spread the word about Fairtrade over the years. There was a section in this weeks about our visit. We included a section in our in our First Community Newsletter to try and let people know about the FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT events the children are planning for 2011. We wish we had made a better job of it and visited FAIR DO's first but then it is all about learning.
