Day 1
We have celebrated Fair trade fortnight by completing and participating in various tasks and activities.
We started the fortnight discussing what we knew and what we wanted to know about fair trade, as well as watching a video called ‘A day in the life of Chifundo’ where we learnt what it was like for a 14 year old boy and his family, who were sugar farmers, to live in Malawi. During this activity, we discussed how the fair trade premium helps communities like Chifundo’s. We discussed that the premium can bring clean water and education to communities.
Day 2
We then learnt about fair trade footballs, lots of us in class weren’t aware that there was fair trade footballs. What shocked us the most was that prior to 1996, children as young as 5 years old were expected to work 13 hour days making footballs. We also learnt that up to 70% of the worlds footballs are made in Pakistan. We finished by watching a short clip about ‘The Story of Fair trade football’.
Day 3
During day 3, we discuss fair trade produce, we started this lesson by watching a short clip ‘Come on into Coobana’. During this clip we learnt that before the benefits of fair trade, workers on many banana farms were forced into poverty because they weren’t given fair money for their produce. During this lesson, we had a class table competition, we had to work within our team to answer a range of questions about fair trade produce. it was during this quiz that we learnt that we eat 5 billion bananas per year, that brazil nut tress can grow to the same height as 3 double decker buses stacked on top of each other and if you weighed all the chocolate we ate per year in the UK, it would weigh the same as a 4000 blue wales.
Day 4
This activity was the best activity by far, we got to taste chocolate! We all had opportunity to taste a piece of white, milk and dark chocolate. The aim was to discuss how consumers had an influence on what shops stock in turn influencing what is bought from farmers. Children used a class token to make a decision on which piece of chocolate they would choose if buying a full bar from a shop. some children discussed that companies may buy may chocolate on customers demand but a counter argument was that they may pay less for it as they are buying more. We had lots of discussion about how we need the fair trade premium to make sure families are paid appropriately for their produce.
Day 5
Today, we were given a picture sheet, it had six pictures on and we had to guess what each picture was. The pictures were cocoa, sugar, cashew nut, tea, vanilla and coffee. We were so surprised with some of them, even having a debate about the results and reasons why it could be.
Day 6
Today, we got the chance to make fair trade cookies. We used fair trade sugar and chocolate. In our three teams, we put the sugar and margarine into a bowl and mixed it until it was creamy. Next, we added in flour and baking powder, this got messy as the flour went all over the table. We then added in chocolate chips, rolled them into a ball, put them on a baking tray and put them in the oven. Some of us decided that we wanted to put marshmallows on top.
The best part was eating them during listening to some of our class book, ‘ Girls can’t play football’.
A child said, “The money from the premium means communities get clean water.” Another commented, “The fair trade premium means that people are paid the right amount of money for their produce.”
While another said, “I can’t believe that children would make footballs for 13 hours a day.”
