Fairtrade Fortnight

Posted by Admin on the Monday, 28 February 2011 at 10:2

Every year Fairtrade Fortnight falls in February/March and is the Fairtrade Foundations campaign to raise awareness of and promote fair-trade.

The last few years have seen huge inroads into the mainstream and now huge manufacturers such as Tate & Lyle have pushed products that are specifically fairtrade.

These advances are great to see and the customer awareness of the fair-trade mark is definitely at a high.

This move to the mainstream is not without criticism however and many ask whether there is a danger of the principles being watered down as large retailers flex their purchasing power.

For us, the danger is that people only associate the fairtrade mark as a sign of fair-trade.

At Freeset, we’ve often said we’re not just about fair trade but were about doing trade completely differently. In most businesses the most able are employed and the least able are let go. The owners and managers are the ones who get paid the most and the junior staff the least. To us though fair-trade is about changing this. We employ women who need a job as the alternative is a life of exploitation having been trafficked into prostitution.  We then train and equip these women to be effective in the sewing industry and make sure their wages are beyond what they could have expected. Having no “business owners” means that the business can be run for the women’s benefit and the profits are reinvested to help them and others like them in the community.

We will definitely be celebrating this Fairtrade Fortnight but at the same time pushing a message that there are other models or fair trade beyond the logo which is now all so familiar.