Edinburgh Celebrates Fair Trade Fortnight
Last week I was at the National Library of Scotland for an awards ceremony celebrating the organisations across Edinburgh that promote the fair trade cause.
This was one of a number of events taking place across Scotland to celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight, an annual event aimed at highlighting the campaign to support farmers and workers in developing countries. This year’s winners are all based in my consituency and I was delighted to see that Hadeel, a shop selling Palestinian fair trade crafts, was named as best overall fair trade project in Edinburgh. The National Library of Scotland was named best newcomer. When they recently refurbished their café they converted to Fairtrade. St Peters Church in Lutton Place was the third winner.
The Hadeel shop sells Palestinian handcrafts, symbols of the Palestinian people and a way for them to establish some normality in a world that is anything but normal. Many of the crafts are produced by women who would otherwise not have any opportunity to earn money. As 80% of Gazans are reliant on food aid the ability to sell fair trade goods makes a practical difference to people's lives.
The night before the awards ceremony I was at Hadeel for the formal opening of an exhibit organised by Sunbula, Hadeel’s sister shop based in Jerusalem. The exhibit, titled Celebrating the Craft Heritage of Palestine, aims to do exactly that.
The event was attended by Hind El Arabi, the Women's Program Officer for the United Nation Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides assistance, protection and advocacy for some 4.7 million registered Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory.
It was extremely interesting to listen to Hind talk about her work with NGOs and on Women’s programmes which help empower women toward self-reliance through self support and income generation activities.
The event also gave me the opportunity to speak about the Scottish Parliament’s support for fair trade initiatives. With Fairtrade Fortnight in full swing this is a very live issue in the Parliament and later this week I will take part in a Member’s debate welcoming fair trade.
The Parliament has some interesting fair trade initiatives including a policy of sourcing fair trade produce for the canteen. I will use my speech to call for the Parliament to look for new ways it can actively promote fair trade products rather than just speaking about them. I will place my speech in the videos section of the site so keep an eye out later in the week.
Fairtrade Fortnight will run until March 7th and you can find details of fair trade outlets in Edinburgh by clicking here.
If you are interested in finding out more you can visit the Fairtrade Foundation website here.