RESULT!
It’s really encouraging when you get in touch with us and let us know that your campaigning has been fruitful. Here’s just a few of the stories we’ve received.
Up close and personal
With three months to spare between finishing school and starting a Discipleship Training Scheme on board a medical ship off the coast of Africa, Anna McMullen might have taken things a little easy, you might think. You’d be wrong. Within 12 weeks Anna had located an empty shop, gained planning permission and re-opened as a coffee shop aimed at giving the young people of her village a place to hang out. It ran for six weeks, made a stack of cash and helped build plenty of relationships between the church and the community.
'I felt as though God had been telling me to do it for quite a while', says Anna. She had become concerned about the problems that many people her age were having with drugs and other issues 'and I wanted to serve them, to give them somewhere to go and be able to start conversations with them.'
And that’s how it all started. Having found the venue she blagged a three-month rent-free period, got the council on her side and went about setting up Anna’s, pulling favours wherever she could. Once she’d got her hands on a coffee machine from Starbucks, it was time to sort out what to put in it.
'I wanted this to be a business that was right in God’s eyes so I made a choice to only sell fair trade coffee. It was pretty easy to find the suppliers as more and more people are aware of the value of Fairly Traded goods.”
Something was obviously going right, as the shop wound up being a huge success.
'It was just me in there, doing 12-hour days. There was a steady stream of people all day, especially before and after school. At the end of it all I was knackered but we’d spent just £200, made over £2,500 profit - which we gave to charity - and built some really good relationships.
And that’s about it. Three months from start to finish: no big budget and no huge team of workers. Just a simple determination to run a business right before God and a passion to live the gospel out through some excellent Activism. Who said it had to be complicated?
Sock it to 'em at uni
Paul, studying for a Masters at Loughborough, met with catering staff and the Vice Chancellor to discuss the introduction of fair trade products in his Students’ Union. ‘They’re very keen. We want Loughborough to be the first university to stock only fair trade products. We’ve had lots of support – 1,800 signatures on a petition.’ Sheffield University stock fair trade as alternatives in all their outlets. Stuart, a geography student, was involved in a recent referendum within the Students’ Union. ‘We very nearly changed to stocking purely Fairtrade products. But not enough people fully understood the issues. People claim they have a right to choose non-fair trade coffee – even if that choice devastates lives in developing countries. But do we have that right? People should ask that.’
Zoe Caals, a third-year maths student, coordinates a weekly fair trade stall in Warwick Students’ Union. ‘Response from students has been very positive. It’s an excellent opportunity to let other students know how easy it is to take a stand against injustice. It’s so easy to be stuck in a bubble and not see how little choices in our lives can affect others. The union is an ideal venue for this sort of action as you can talk to students directly.’
Tracy Wearn, studying History and German at Birmingham University, was inspired when she heard about the Lift the Label campaign at a Tearfund talk. ‘I’ve been studying fair trade as part of my course, and have been thinking that caring for the poor really has to be done.’
Tracy was knocked out of action with glandular fever at the start of her final year. ‘I had to chill out a lot, but that’s not really me! I developed a strategy to draw the university executive’s attention to fair trade, and started up an Ethical Trade Society. We’ve presented the case for fair trade to the University Catering Strategy team, and proposed the idea of becoming a Fairtrade University. We’ve also met with the Registrar and the Secretary of the University, and we haven’t had a single objection.’