Fairtrade
Dalgety Parish Church is a Fairtrade Congregation. What is Fairtrade and why is it necessary? At its simplest, Fairtrade is a trade system that puts people, not profit, at the heart of the transaction.
There is a growing awareness in society of the justice and equality issues being satisfied in commodity-producing countries through the introduction of fair-trade agreements and the sale of fairtrade products in the UK and worldwide. Justice and equality are at the heart of the Christian faith but both are difficult to achieve in a materialistic world.
Our Church runs a Fairtrade stall, generally on the first Sunday of each month. In addition, there is a Fairtrade stall once a month (usually 2nd Tuesday) at our Café Connect which is open every Tuesday morning from 10am – 11.30am. Fairtrade products can be identified by the FAIRTRADE MARK. This shows that the producers receive a fair and stable price for their labour, along with extra income that improves their lives and helps to reduce poverty. Without these safeguards, millions of families who produce our tea, coffee, bananas, cocoa beans, sugar, wine etc. are vulnerable to market forces which ignore their rights – to even the most basic of essentials.
Fairtrade products have to reach a certain standard – set by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International. Registered producers receive a minimum price to cover production costs and a premium that covers community development.
It does not really matter where you buy your Fairtrade products from – the Church stall, Café Connect or the local supermarkets etc. The important thing is that you buy Fairtrade. The surplus from our Fairtrade stall sponsors the education of Moumitta Choughu, a young girl in India. Our Fairtrade approach therefore has the twin benefits of assisting local producers and sponsoring a girl’s education.
Our Fairtrade stall offers a wide range of products – Geo bars, coffee, tea and sugar as well as slightly more exotic dried mango slices (absolutely delicious!) and Kilombero rice from northern Malawi. This is excellent rice for risottos or to accompany stir fries and similar dishes. The rice sells for £3 per kilo and the surplus from the sale of a 90kg bag pays for the education of a child in Malawi for a whole year. Well worth buying, if for no other reason than that.
Last year, Dalgety Parish Church, in conjunction with Dalgety Bay & Hillend Community Council, embarked on a programme to make Dalgety Bay a Fairtrade town. A little progress has been made on this but it is hoped that 2012 will provide the impetus to drive the project forward.
