As you may have heard from our last school assembly, the Fairtrade team has been busy! The annual event of Fairtrade Fortnight is a great opportunity to educate and raise awareness for cocoa farmers like Lucia and Edith. The event not only raises awareness for the stories they have but also for the women putting all the work into your Fairtrade chocolate bar. These stories below highlight the need for an equal and fair income, forest friendly farming and how different the world can be when you make a change.
WHAT GOES INTO A BAR OF CHOCOLATE?
According to a fairtrade report, we eat an average of around 8.4kg of chocolate every year. However, the story behind the bar isn't that sweet. Cocoa farming requires long days of hard work, the cocoa needs to be looked after thoroughly to be of a good quality, but the living income is not sufficient. Women carry out 68% of the labor in Cocoa farming but only receive 21% of the income, despite the UK chocolate industry being worth £4 billion each year. The women are not paid enough to provide for their own basic needs, let alone the rest of their families. However, by choosing Fairtrade, we can change this.
A FARMER's STORY: LUCIA
Lucia is a cocoa famer in Sierra Leone, one of the biggest cocoa producers in the world. She farms cocoa in a rainforest, a place that is easily susceptible to plant disease and extreme climates. When crops fail and cocoa pods aren't farmed, Lucia and her family go hungry.
She is now part of a Fairtrade cooperative in the community called Ngoleagorbu. All these farmers in the cooperative live around the edges of the Gola rainforest.
Their Fairtrade certification guarantees that their work will be safe and equal. It supports her enough to protect the well being of her family and the cocoa she farms. This is all due to the fact that Fairtrade is becoming a better choice over unethical chocolate bars.
A FARMER'S STORY: THIS IS EDITH
HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED? (I hear you cry!)
Well, buying any sort of Fairtrade product like bananas or chocolate, is supporting fairtrade (If the mark is on the label then we know it is Fairtrade am I right?!) However, only 6% of the worlds cocoa is Fairtrade and frankly that's just not enough. Having you lovely people supporting our G11 Fairtrade team around the school will bring awareness and hopefully some ideas for when you're next shopping for groceries.
The French Fairtrade website: https://maxhavelaarfrance.org/ for more information about what you can do locally!
Thank you for reading this blog and supporting our Fairtrade team!
Stay safe everyone and wash your hands :) Small changes make the biggest difference!
