2021 – This was the year when we had to re-apply for Fairtrade Status for Llanelli.
Yes, we got it again for another two years. We will have to re-apply in April 2023. All the work that we had done over the last two years was our evidence.
The first thing we had to do was to plan for Fairtrade Fortnight, always the last week of February and the first week of March.
If Fairtrade Fortnight was not successful we would not achieve this Fairtrade Status which is important for Llanelli and the rural and community councils.
The application form:
I think it would be interesting for you to understand what is involved to maintain status.
There are five goals:
- Motions of support by your local councils. The MP’s role is vital in showing support
- Addresses of all shops, supermarkets and cafes that sell Fairtrade products
- Total number of schools, universities and faith communities in the area and indicate which of these support Fairtrade. Also list all workplaces and other community organisations that use Fairtrade products for their staff. If there is a flagship employer, include the number of employees
- Media coverage – a full list of events and media coverage with dates and copies of press articles and social media
- A list of steering group members, their roles, membership of other groups and their contact details.
We have to develop action plans for the future and make sure that we keep to them. Get local people involved to take Fairtrade forward in your area.
On the Facebook page for example, every like is counted. We have to have a website and keep it updated.
The workload is immense and the steering group needs all the help it can get. Everything that we do has to be recorded and/or counted. It gets easier as the basics are done in the first year but they always have to be updated. So visits have to be made each year to check that nothing has changed.
I have explained this because people are unaware about the amount of work and the kind of work involved to keep Fairtrade Llanelli going.
So, to return to what we have been doing this year.
The theme for Fairtrade fortnight was Climate, Fairtrade and You. Fairtrade Fortnight included a Fairtrade Fortnight calendar, 10 Fairtrade recipes, visiting the asylum seekers at Penally to donate Fairtrade gifts and laying Fairtrade stones in a trail in Parc Howard. The rest of the time we attended zoom meetings about climate change and our MP, Nia Griffith, set up our own zoom session to talk about climate change and to advertise our Fairtrade Fortnight. It became an extremely successful fortnight in spite of lockdown restrictions. Some schools agreed to do Fairtrade Quizzes for us and our MP’s office translated the quizzes into Welsh for us. Afterwards we visited these schools and presented them with Fairtrade footballs for their schools as a thank you.
Our website has articles written about the climate change zoom sessions.
We celebrated Earth Day and there is an article on our website which showed how Earth started.
We praised all our Co-ops who support Fairtrade and who have helped Fairtrade Llanelli on our journey since 2017.
We started a blog and we celebrated World Fairtrade Day. We supported the Wave of Hope.
We have been contacting the Community Development Officers of all the councils so that we can work together. We visited a Fairtrade shop in Newcastle Emlyn and learned so much more from the two amazing women who run it.
We have advertised Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate which is absolutely delicious and completely Fairtrade.
We have visited Parc y Scarlets rugby club and have gained their support and we will be working with Rhodri, their community officer.
We now have two workplace business champions. One is Robert Walters who set up our website and still manages it, free of charge and David Darkin, a local architect, without whom Fairtrade Llanelli would not have got off the ground. His help and support have been extraordinary.
As restrictions are being lifted and the Llanelli Town market is starting up on the third Saturday of every month, Fairtrade Llanelli will be there with the Fairtrade banana and having lots of fun with local children. We have Fairtrade balloons, Fairtrade stickers and sometimes actual Fairtrade bananas and/or chocolate as gifts for the children and leaflets for the parents to explain the serious stuff.
When you buy Fairtrade products, with the trusted mark/logo, you know that there is no slavery, no child labour, fair pay, good health and safety and so on and that our farming co-operatives and our farmers are climate change activists working with and helping the environment.
As we always say, we do not wish you to change all your shopping but just make one small change and make one small step.
Don’t just think about your wallet but consider what you shop for and could one of those items be Fairtrade. This also helps Fairtrade to give premiums which are amounts of money to help the co-operatives, such as a small maternity hospital with a midwife or proper housing for our farmers, or toilets for the workers on the farms.
These are things that we take for-granted. Your one item change in your shopping cam literally change the lives of our Fairtrade farmers in the developing world. You can actually make a difference.
That is something to be proud of, don’t you think?
