RESIDENTS in Newcastle Emlyn celebrated Fairtrade Fortnight with a number of events.
Fairtrade Fortnight is an annual campaign which highlights the importance of fairtrade products to ensure that everyone involved in the production of items receives a fair wage.
This year, it was held between February 27 and March 12 and the residents of Newcastle Emlyn held a range of events and activities organised by the Newcastle Emlyn Fairtrade Group to celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight.
They held a decorating night called ‘craft your way to a fairer future’ in which both children and adults created decorations such as bunting and Fairtrade logo paper collages. The group was joined by the Honeycomb project which is co-ordinated by Newcastle Emlyn Town Council. Attendees also created nature inspired artwork, with pollinator habitats set to form part of an art installation at Dol Llewelyn community open space this summer.
Menter Gorllewin Sir Gar hosted a Fairtrade recipe competition which ran from March 1 to March 8 and was won by Ysgol y Ddwlan student Luned Davies.
A ‘no coffee, coffee morning’ was held on March 11 in the Catholic Church Hall in collaboration with Newcastle Emlyn’s Repair Café. Refreshments were provided by the Fairtrade Group and the story of how the climate crisis is affecting production of food and drink items such as tea, coffee and chocolate was told.
Jill Sutton, chairwoman of Newcastle Emlyn Fairtrade Group said: “What would a typical coffee morning look like without coffee, tea or sugar? It might seem a far-fetched question, but with 93 per cent of Fairtrade coffee producers in Kenya who were surveyed already experiencing the effects of climate change and Fairtrade tea growers reporting more flooding along with extreme temperatures and water scarcity, it is a threat we all need to face.”
On March 12, there was a ‘save our bananas’ swim at Aberporth beach.
Lenshina Hines, Fairtrade Group secretary and chairman of BAFTS Fair Trade Network UK, said: “Splashing around in the sea with inflatable bananas might seem silly – but it is a very visible way of raising awareness of the threat climate change poses to our favourite foods and to the communities who produce them.”
Newcastle Emlyn Co-op donated tea, coffee, sugar, chocolate and bananas for use during the event.
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