Students fight for a fairer deal for all farmers
STUDENTS at All Hallows Catholic College held their annual FairTrade breakfast, designed to raise awareness for the FairTrade Foundation charity.
Students from different year groups gathered together to see how their purchasing choices affected international and British food producers, and even tried some fair trade breakfast foods.
Reverend David Harrison spoke about how he and many of the students were deeply effected by fair trade. He said: “It was a great opportunity to put our faith into practise and actually make a difference. We wanted the young people to sit down for breakfast and think about where all the food has come from. They really enjoyed themselves, who wouldn’t enjoy FairTrade chocolate spread on toast? In our house we always support FairTrade bananas. Making that choice we can be reassured that we are doing something every week. Even if people don’t have the time, the money or the initiative, we can all make a difference.”
Speaking at the breakfast, Chen Ji, a member of the FairTrade Committee at the college, said: “We are very happy that we have been able to put our core value of stewardship into action through promoting responsibility in our purchase choices; another core value is having honourable purpose in our daily actions and, as a specialist Business Enterprise College, commercial trade is not an exception to this.
“By encouraging other students to see the beauty and value of FairTrade products, we hope that they will persuade parents to choose FairTrade products which, even if a little more expensive, means a lot to the farmers trying to provide for their families.”
Macclesfield MP David Rutley, who was also invited to the event, said he was impressed with the activity and applauded the College for continuing with this annual event.
He said: “It is great to see All Hallows and its dedicated students promoting FairTrade at their FairTrade Breakfast once again.
“The school’s FairTrade Team have developed an enduring reputation for campaigning on this issue.
“They should be very proud of their efforts.”