Issue 6 – Friday 4 August
Changing the world chunk by chunk
Youth Parliament
At the AGM of Chocolish, the cocoa barons you love to hate, the managing director introduced record profits made by driving down prices paid to farmers for their crop. “These workers have had it easy for too long,” she said. Sadly for her, but happily for cocoa farmers, the assembled shareholders saw through her plans to fob them off with a bumper dividend and a holiday in the sun – within minutes a boardroom coup had her heading for the dole queue.
That was one of the role plays introduced by Ben Yeo of Day Chocolate Company at yesterday's Cocoa Summit, assisted by facilitators from Justice Arts Education and Comic Relief. It had delegates from across the camp experiencing trade issues in every possible scenario – from under the thumb of an evil plantation owner to running a leading chocolate company.
But how do we hand out such justice in real life? The message of the summit was simple – even the largest multi-nationals are starting to care what their consumers think. And it's easy to send them the right messages – NO to firms that exploit the workers and YES to those that have embraced the Fairtrade mark. And with two fantastic Fairtrade cafés here at Global Village, there’s never been a better chance to give it a try.
But there’s so much more that we can do. The final workshop sessions gave participants practical ideas for raising the profile of Fairtrade here at GV, and back at home when camp is over. Find out more for yourself by reading the Chocolate Challenge Manifesto online at www.dubble.co.uk – sign up and join thousands of young people who want to send a message to the chocolate industry that things have to change.
Day Chocolate Company are the people behind leading Fairtrade brands Dubble and Divine chocolate. They are unique in that they are owned by a group of cocoa farmers – the Kuapa Kokoo Co-operative in Ghana.
The Cocoa Summit was supported by the Co-operative Group, one of the U.K.’s leading supporters of the Fairtrade movement. “It’s a natural partnership for us,” said Owen Jell of the Group – “we’ve been right behind Fairtrade from the start – and Day make all our own-brand chocolate too, using cocoa from the very farmers we’ve been hearing about today. It’s all about what one co-operative can do to help another – which is why it’s great to see so much enthusiasm from the delegates to make Fairtrade succeed”
When they asked what could be done to help promote Fairtrade during and after GV, the facilitators were deluged with responses from eager chocolate-lovers:
• “I’ll link my website to Dubble”
• “We could start a young co-operatives group at school”
• “What about our school uniforms? – if they’re not Fairtrade, we won’t wear them!”
• “And how about our Woodcraft shirts? When can we have a Fairtrade Mark on them?”
The ideas that are emerging about trade will join with detailed research through the commissions set up for each of the Youth Parliament priorities. All the threads will be pulled together on Monday, hopefully, with a Declaration on Youth Empowerment – an agenda to take action far beyond Global Village.