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. 

Busy week for Rainbow Turtle!

What a busy week it has been for us! Last week we celebrated the Mod Phaislig coming to town by holding a stall all week at the Piazza shopping centre to promote everything Fairtrade alongside our office neighbours, Just Trading Scotland.  We also helped Paisley celebrate the Mod coming to town by decorating our shop with Mod bunting and posters to get everyone talking about this special event.  The Royal National Mod is an annual event which aims to showcase Gaelic language and culture to the wider world, through music, dance, drama, art and literature.  It was a great success and good to see people from all around the country turn out to support the event.  

As well as this, it was also national chocolate week so what better way to promote our great selection of Divine chocolate than at the Mod event for everyone to sample and buy.  This proved very popular along with the Whiskey & Gin tasting from other stall holders and & Just Trading Scotland's samples of their tasty jams, chutneys and sauces.  With a specially designed Fridge cake recipe by Britain’s celebrity chef and author Sam Stern to help support chocolate week, we at Rainbow Turtle created a hamper using Divine chocolate and other fairly traded ingredient to promote this tasty recipe for those to purchase.  

Thank you to everyone who turned up to support us last week and the volunteers at Rainbow Turtle & Just Trading Scotland who took the time to run the stall. We enjoyed taking part in both celebrations!

Paisley celebrates ten years of Fairtrade!

Did you know last month Paisley celebrated ten years of being a Fairtrade town?  The celebrations took place at Paisley's Town Hall on the 20^th August, organised by the Paisley Fairtrade Partnership with funding from Renfrewshire Council.  We at Rainbow Turtle were delighted to attend this event after all we are Renfrewshire's only dedicated Fair Trade shop!  Invited guests were represented from schools, community groups and local businesses all gathered to celebrate this occasion with us.  The event was essentially to thank all guests for all their hard work raising awareness and promoting Fairtrade over the last ten years.  

The celebrations commenced with Fairtrade afternoon tea and the cutting of the 10^th birthday anniversary cake which was made by our very own Liz Cotton using Fairtrade ingredients of course.  During the event there was an unveiling of a photograph exhibition that included a look back at some of the people, organisations and events over the past ten years which had contributed to Paisley's efforts to the Fairtrade campaign.  In the upcoming months this exhibition will tour Fairtrade events and points of interest in the town for the public to have a look at, so keep an eye out!  Throughout the celebrations the message being sent out was that the Fairtrade campaign is as important now as it was ten years ago.  We need to continue campaigning for Fairtrade in order to help transform developing world producer's lives and by changing one thing in your daily life to Fairtrade you are already making a difference. 

Fairtrade Fortnight 2012!

With Fairtrade Fortnight underway, a variety of events are being held In Renfrewshire in celebration and promotion of Fairtrade. There are also Fairtrade Trails on the go, which means that participants can take literal steps while "Taking a Step" for Fairtrade.

Some examples of individual steps are to serve Fairtrade drinks at your next gathering, whether it is tea, coffee or wine, to swap your brand of biscuits to one with the Fairtrade mark.

The Paisley Fairtrade Trail is working it's way through many outlets in Paisley. When someone purchases Fairtrade goods they can collect stickers and a sticker sheet; followers of the trail will collect as many as they can and return their entries to the Rainbow Turtle shop..

From the Renfrewshire Council Website:

"All the step pledges made in Renfrewshire will then be gathered together and sent off to the Fairtrade Foundation to help them achieve their target."

The Fairtrade Foundation are aiming for 1.5 million steps in 2012, and we are hopeful that many of these steps will be achieved during Fairtrade Fortnight, starting today (27th February) till the 11th March.

People interested in joining in the Paisley Fairtrade Trail can start at one of:

Redss, Glasgow Road

Rainbow Turtle, Gauze Street

Tastebuds, Lawn Street

Paisley Abbey

WRVS Community Cafe, Causeyside Street

CO-OP Foodstore, Piazza Shopping Centre

Paisley Arts Centre

Coffee & Cream, High St

Cardosi's, High Street & Storie Street

As an incentive, there is a chance to win a Fairtrade Prize for taking part of the trial. More links on this Fairtrade Fortnight are available below:

Local Event Listing for Fairtrade Fortnight in Renfrewshire
Read more about the steps being taken in Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire Council page on Facebook.
Register steps you take with the Fairtrade Foundation.

We've got that fantastic Fairtrade Fortnight Friday feeling!

In 1997 the Fairtrade Foundation pioneered an event known as Fairtrade Fortnight, in our very own Scotland. This was an event to promote ethical trading values and raise awareness of trading fairly; the campaign was successful, and was celebrated to the rest of the United Kingdom in 1998.

Fairtrade Fortnight has since grown to be celebrated in many other countries worldwide, and provides an exciting time of year in which many Fairs, Fashion Shows, Fetes and food tastings are made in encouragement of Fairtrade products.

This year, Fairtrade fortnight was termed "The Big Swap" and was celebrated February 22nd to March 7th, creating an opportunity for all involved to enhance the profile of Fairtrade in the local community and further afield. Schools throughout the country work on projects to generate interest and raise concern for the younger generation and their families.

During this time of the year, Rainbow Turtle took on an exciting (and slightly terrifying) challenge of providing service above and beyond normal duties; sales and orders increased, and sale or return orders skyrocketed. We worked hard each day to manage order information, safely keep on top of stock, host stalls at local events, arrange and pack stall after stall for local schools and churches, and accept incoming requests. Throughout this time, the Rainbow Turtle shop remained open for sale, promoting Fairtrade in Paisley (with some giant inflatable Cups, I might add).


Teamwork was an essential part of success, and we couldn't have made it through without the generous help of our volunteers, both in the shop and in the warehouse. The busy fortnight also became a time for new staff Tony and Simon to learn a great deal about Rainbow Turtle's products and administration, as well as an opportunity to meet the clients and volunteers who all work hard to promote Fairtrade.

This year 30 million people knew about Fairtrade Fortnight, making 10 million people more than last; with Fairtrade Fortnight over, we can rejoice in the success of spreading the word of Fairtrade, as well as making it through and out to the other side. We can also begin to think about next years Fairtrade Fortnight, and hope that it is even more successful than this year's!

Links:

·       The Fairtrade Foundation BigSwap page (2010)

·       The Fairtrade Foundation page about Fairtrade Fortnight 2011

Provost's Community Awards

On Friday, 27 March , Provost Celia Cameron hosted the 2009 Renfrewshire Council Provost's Community Awards. This was a gala evening to showcase much positive action taking place in our community. The event took place at the Normandy Hotel where nominees and nominators all enjoyed a celebratory meal.

For the first time there was a category among the 7 awards for Fairtrade: "The Spirit of Fairtrade Award". This was sponsored by the Piazza Shopping Centre. There were 4 groups short-listed for this award.

The Abbey Cafe, Paisley 

Bishopton Faire Trade Village 

The Junction, Lochwinnoch 

Rainbow Turtle, Paisley 

It was very exciting when Rainbow Turtle was announced as THE WINNER and Colum Scriven accepted the lovely trophy on behalf of Rainbow Turtle.

This award recognizes the work done by all connected with Rainbow Turtle whether working in or buying from the shop, campaigning or supporting the many and various Fairtrade Fortnight events.

The real winner of the evening, however, was Fairtrade itself because for each of the shortlisted groups there was a well narrated video and every one of these sent out the same message, namely that Fairtrade is about justice and all stressed the difference that we can each make by asking for and using fair trade products whenever possible.

Please do come along to the shop and see the lovely trophies for yourself which are on display in the shop window; the large trophy we have for the year when perhaps we shall win it again! and the smaller one we keep. Remember the "we" is you! This award truly is for all who have been involved in any way during the life of Rainbow Turtle. Well done!