May 10: World Fair Trade Day

What’s the big idea?

World Fair Trade Day is an opportunity for people the world over to celebrate fair trade and the benefits it brings to producers in developing countries. The fair trade movement attempts to provide an alternative to the inequalities of conventional world trade. Its aim is to tackle the long-term problems of the developing world through sustainable development for excluded and disadvantaged producers.

Assembly ideas

If your school is new to fair trade, why not take the opportunity to introduce it to pupils? The important thing is to stress the purchasing power that each and every pupil holds as a consumer and show them how they can use that power to affect positively the lives of producers in the developing world. You could do this by getting volunteers to represent the different sections of the supply chain, and show how different prices paid at each stage affect the developing world producers at the beginning of the cycle.

If your school is already supporting the fair trade movement, then why not hold a special celebration assembly to mark your achievements to date, and the achievements of fair trade at large? You could create a quiz for pupils on these wider achievements, drawing on the most recent data from the facts and figures section of the Fairtrade Foundation website.

This year’s theme is “Fair Trade and Ecology”, so you could focus on the way fair trading enables producers in developing nations to invest in environmentally friendly production.

Help, I don’t have enough time to prepare

Don’t worry, there’s a ready-made fair trade PowerPoint quiz available on the Cafod website.

Where can I go for more information? www.fairtradeschools.orgresourcesassemblies

www.risc.org.ukeducationFT%20assemby%20lores.pdf

www.cafod.org.ukprimaryother-resourcesfairtrade

Next week: May 19-23: National Walk to School Week.