Who makes your breakfast?

"Before you've finished your breakfast this morning, you'll have relied on half the world"
- Martin Luther King

An interesting thought. And a depressing one, when we realise that the people we rely on for our coffee and muesli are often exploited and oppressed by the unfair power balance in world trade.

Breakfast is often remarked as the most important meal of the day; it provides a source of slowly released energy that helps us work throughout the day, gives us an opportunity to eat grains and fruit, boosts our immune system, can help lower cholesterol and staves off the increase in appetite that leads to an eating binge later on in the day. With all these good things about breakfast, it can make you think, is my breakfast good itself?

You can celebrate World Fair Trade Day
on Saturday the 12th of May this year!

The theme for the upcoming World Fair Trade Day (Sat, 12th May) is just that; make your breakfast a good, wholesome and ethical breakfast, full of fairly traded foods and drinks. To support this we are putting a discount on various fairly traded breakfast products in the Rainbow Turtle Shop in advance of World Fair Trade Day, with the hope of encouraging more people to have a Fair Trade breakfast on Saturday the 12th, and to think about their breakfast and where it comes from. The Fairtrade Foundation website has a list of recipes to inspire, and a full guide to having a Fairtrade breakfast!

We are also planning to host a Fair Trade Breakfast on the day, inside the shop, and all are invited to drop by and sample delicious jams and marmalades (on toast), fresh Coffee and Tea, orange juice and quality cereal, all fairly traded!

Breakfast products will start going on sale this Saturday, so If you are thinking of having a Fair Trade breakfast at home, or with a friend, or if you are looking to join us on the 12th, pop by the Rainbow Turtle Shop and have a wee look.

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.

Take a Step for Fairtrade

Fairtrade Fortnight runs from the 27th of February until the 11th of March this year. The Fairtrade Foundation are asking everyone to take a step this Fairtrade fortnight.

"It can be a simple step, Like swapping your tea to Fairtrade, or a bigger step, like asking everyone in your office to do it too."

We have a few ideas for some of the bigger steps, such as holding a sale, taking on a Malawi rice challenge, hosting a Big Brew, joining a Fair Trade Trail (for some literal steps) or even creating your own fair trade trail in your local area.

Of course, we can also help with the little steps too; the Rainbow Turtle shop in Paisley is well stocked with Fairtrade and ethically sourced goods, and we are always on hand to help.

You can download our leaflet for promoting the upcoming Fairtrade Fortnight here: Fairtrade Fortnight with Rainbow Turtle 2012.pdf 
Contact us, or come back here for new information as we confirm the sites and locations for some local Fair Trade Trails.

While you wait, why not visit the Fairtrade foundation website and register to receive the latest campaign news from the Fairtrade foundation.

Hampers Everywhere!

Christmas time is always a blast, and that blast nearly knocks us off our feet as we have to work extra hard and make every sale count. The Rainbow Turtle shop is always at its busiest each Christmas, and many Christmas Fayre sales and hampers leave the warehouse during this time.

A special note to thank all our volunteers for their hard work, particularly during the recent busy time of the year.

After returning from the seasonal break, we could be forgiven for assuming that things would be quiet, as frosty January usually is, however, we had an incredible order for a whole heap of hampers to work on!

An order was made for 23 corporate ethical hampers just towards the end of the year, for shipping in January. The hampers were a unique value and size, and so we had to quickly source hamper baskets and shipping boxes to make the order.

We sourced the baskets from Craft Romania And Fair Trade who Import willow and wooden products from Romanian villages on ethical and fair trade terms.

Many thanks to Craft Romania And Fair Trade, to Oxfam for requesting the order, and to all the producers who working hard all year round; something that reminds us that we all need to work a little harder to help make everything fair.

World Cup 2010

This World Cup will be remembered for two things that happened for the first time; it was the first time the World Cup was played on African soil and it was the first time Spain lifted the trophy. However, the 2010 World Cup will also be remembered for the Rainbow Turtle World Cup Prize Draw!!!

The 'Rainbow Nation' of South Africa did not disappoint. There was joy in the streets and in the stands and who will ever forget the magical sound of the 'vuvuselas' - still ringing in my ears. To celebrate the first World Cup in Africa Rainbow Turtle held a prize draw. The competition was open to anyone who purchased an African product or a product sourced, in part, from Africa. The entrants simply chose the team they thought would win, put their entry slip into the pot and watched to see if their team would make it through.

A fairtrade football - These wereon
promotion in the Rainbow Turtle
shop during the world cup.

The tournament was not without its usual share of upset and controversy. At the group stages we lost two of the world's most household names - France and Italy -holders and runners-up from the 2006 tournament in Germany. Ghana were the only African side to make it through to the knock-out stage, perhaps unsurprisingly as they are powered by Divine Chocolate!

The most popular choice for Rainbow Turtle competition entrants was England so there were disappointments north of the border too as the England side bowed out after a display of poor defending against some spectacular German football.

As more favourites faltered and the entry slips left in the pot became fewer and fewer we were impressed by Uruguay, possibly the surprise side of the tournament. For a country with a population of less than 5million to reach the semi-final was a great achievement, but the Netherlands were too much for them and after Spain dispatched of Germany in the other semi-final, there were only two teams left in it.

The final itself was disappointing, scoreless after full-time, but Iniesta's extra-time goal eventually won Spain the World Cup. Dutch hearts broke across the globe as did those of a few supporters of fair trade who had selected the Netherlands in the Rainbow Turtle Prize Draw and had their eye on the £10 gift voucher prize.

When all was said and done there were four names left in the pot. The winner was John Alexander of Paisley. John said "It's always nice to win. Football's never been my game but Fair Trade is."

Thanks to all who supported African producers at Rainbow Turtle during the World Cup. In this small but significant way we have all helped in the struggle against poverty in Africa and helped to make the first African World Cup work for the people of Africa.

Written by Simon Ruane

Rainbow Turtle chosen for launch of paisley.org.uk Community Champions

 Renfrewshire Council for Voluntary Services (RCVS) and paisley.org.uk are working together to highlight community champions; charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises that are working to make paisley a better place.

From paisley.org.uk;
"RCVS exists to help community and voluntary groups in any way we can for the greater good of Renfrewshire's citizens. From securing funding, training staff and running events to handling payrolls, printing and the creation of promotional films, we aim to help local groups no matter what their needs are."

paisley.org.uk is a popular community-driven website for locally-based people to stay connected to the events of the town, and is a great place to launch articles promoting local champions, to further the promotion of the town.

Paisley Town Hall - View from St Mirren Street, across the White Cart Water. © Copyright Susie Young and licensed for reuse under thisCreative Commons License.

Paisley Town Hall - View from St Mirren Street, across the White Cart Water.
© Copyright Susie Young and licensed for reuse under thisCreative Commons License.

Rainbow Turtle were chosen to be the first entry for the Community Champions section of paisley.org.uk, and we are as proud as ever to be a part of the local community. However, the local community is also a part of us as we rely heavily on a dedicated team of local volunteers; we all work together to continue ethical trading and to raise awareness of ethical approaches to shopping, and their effect on the wider world.

We wish good luck to paisley.org.uk and RCVS in their partnership to promote Community Champions, and would like to thank them for asking Rainbow Turtle to be the subject of the first article in the Community Champions blog.

Links:

·       Blog Article about Community Champions

·       Community Champions section

·       Article about Rainbow Turtle on paisley.org

Clerical Stoles are selling like hot cakes

With the launch of the new online store and Liz hosting a stall at the Methodist Conference in Portsmouth, the Clerical Stoles been selling fast and we are overjoyed.

In Mozambique The Women's Limanyano of the Methodist church work together to sew the Stoles into form. Pedro Langa, an artist based in Maputo, Mozambique, hand paints them with beautiful iconic symbols.

There are stoles in various Liturgical colours with wonderful batik patterns and symbols; some of the stoles are decorated with symbols of cultural significance. Symbols such as the Mackerel - a food of necessity - and the ceremonious African drums, describe various aspects of the challenging life faced by people in Mozambique, and are truly a work of art. The result is an item of clergy-wear which is not only made with fair trade principles, but which also expresses a powerful symbol of culture, strength, and support to those that witness its use in celebration. Each Story stole comes complete with a description of the paintings and their meanings, so that stole owners can discuss the hardships of life in Mozambique, and how a helping hand can be given through trading fairly.

Having an online store gives us the opportunity to make this exciting clergy-wear available to a wider audience; Searching Fairtrade Clerical Stoles brings people to our online store, and people from all over the world can browse, though the delivery system is currently organised for UK sales.

With only half the original stock remaining, we are making preparations to have more stoles made. I for one cannot wait to see more of Pedro's colourful work arrive at Rainbow Turtle's doorstep.