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. 

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!

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. 

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.