Thursday, 21 November 2013

Our Story behind Rainbow Turtle’s Christmas Window Display

In July Liz Cotton travelled to Malawi to lead a team of people who were joining together on a house building project with the charity Habitat for Humanity. Habitat works in many countries throughout the world tackling the massive problem of inadequate housing.  All projects are locally run and teams are invited in to provide labour; encouragement and much needed funds to kick start more projects. Most housing projects become self sustaining as the home owners pay back the cost of the materials over time which feed back into a rolling fund, however this project was for orphans and vulnerable children and so the homes were gifted to the children to give them some security and stability. Liz has done this each year since 2007 and is always challenged and inspired afresh by the families they work with and the team members who leave the comfort of their own homes to help change someone’s life on the other side of the world.

This year was no exception and in the team were some people from Renfrewshire who were joined by folk from all over the UK and beyond. With only two people knowing each other before they left the whole team met up at various airports en route and had already gelled by the time they reached Lilongwe. For most it was the first experience of a trip to Africa but all got stuck in and were aspiring master brickies by the end of the first day.

In just over a week two houses had their roofs on and were nearly ready for occupation and the team were all best buddies and the sadness was as much leaving each other as leaving the community that they had grown so close to in such a short time.

In her other life Liz runs Rainbow Turtle, the Fair Trade organisation which has a retail shop on Gauze Street in Paisley and works with schools, businesses, faith and community groups throughout Renfrewshire to help them in their Fair Trade journeys and quest to making the world a better place.

Inevitably on the build people shared their life stories and Liz learned that Adam, who is based in Berlin, designs window installations for shops in places like Hong Kong, Shanghai and Paris. He had come to Malawi with a strong desire to use his practical skills to benefit others and was really interested in Liz’s work in Renfrewshire. There were many jokes about him coming to do a window display in Paisley but joke has turned to reality and not only had he designed a winter wonderland display of ice caves, icicles and origami animals but he came to oversee the installation.

Such was the bonding of the Malawi team that 17 of the team members came to join him and help build the installation. This had coincided with the Paisley Lights switch on and hopefully helped brighten up a corner of Paisley and highlighted all the wonderful products from foods to gifts, crafts, jewellery, toys and all sorts of Christmas decorations and nativity sets. Rainbow Turtle wants people to make your shopping matter this year and help change the lives of people in some of the poorest parts of our world. 


Wednesday, 6 November 2013

What are Zamora Plantain Chips?

Zamora Plantain Chips are the first, brand new organic Fairtrade crisps to be introduced in the UK.  The Plantain is produced in Zamora, south of Ecuador and bought over by the Fair Business Alliance Limited, based in Edinburgh.  The aim of Business Alliance is to create new opportunities for small farmers and producers from developing countries in Latin America to improve their livelihood and communities.  This is achieved by supporting them to become part of a fair and ethical supply chain and providing market for buyers in developed countries to support international sustainable trade. 

The Business Alliance has been actively involved in launching and distributing the Fairtrade crisps within the UK.  They have just won the 2013 Great Taste Award with their lightly salted Zamora Plantain Chips beating thousands of other products.  It is the world’s largest and most rigorous food awards which involved almost 10,000 products, 400 judges and thousands of hours of blind tasting.  The crisps were introduced six months after Fairtrade Fortnight took place in March.   Back in September at the Fair Trade Festival in Perth, the public were given the chance to sample the chips as well as the other two flavours including spicy and naturally sweet. 

Did you know Rainbow Turtle sell Zamora Plantain Chips in our shop in Paisley?  Why not pop in and give them a try, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.  The Plantain Chips are a great snack; they are similar to chunky potato crisps but less crispy and are ideal to eat on its own or served with sweet or savoury dips.  My favourite has got to the spicy flavour!