Fairtrade Conference - February 2017

On 28^th February 2017, Calthorpe Park School hosted a Conference for Fairtrade fortnight involving a number of different schools including: All Saints Junior School, Velmead Junior School, Dogmersfield Primary School, Crondall Primary School, Elvetham Heath Primary School and Crookham Juniors. On arrival, students from each school were split into groups with students from a variety of different schools including some year 7s and 8s from Calthorpe in each.

Throughout the day, students took part in activities such as: food tasting, party games, orienteering, African drumming and creative Fairtrade. Each activity had a Fairtrade theme and allowed the students to learn more about the aspects involved. However, the main activity of the day was for each group to design and create a costume to be shown in a cat walk at the end of the day. Each group randomly chose a specific product and environment for their costume to be focused on; for example, one group received ‘Beach’ and ‘Bananas’. As each group contained around ten students, six of them went to an activity and the remaining few stayed to work on their costume and presentation during each session. Finally, by the end of the day, everyone had taken part in a Fairtrade activity and finished their group’s presentation and costume ready for the presentation and catwalk!

During African Drumming the students got an amazing chance to perform their own drumming masterpiece with a video of one of the performances being shown at the end of the day. In food tasting the guests made their own delicious smoothies using loads of different fruits such as grapes, raspberries and bananas (Fairtrade of course)!

The most important thing about this event is of course raising awareness of Fairtrade and the incredible work it does all around the world. During one of the activities some of the students got a chance to write about what Fairtrade means to them. A student from Dogmersfield Primary School wrote that ‘Fairtrade means that farmers all over the world get a chance to live the life they deserve’. We think this really sums up the importance and impact of such an incredible opportunity.