Over the past week, Towera and I have spoken to approximately 1,200 people in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Stirling, Perth, and Fife during our Fairtrade Fortnight tour.

We’ve spent today in Oban, speaking to two primary schools and the high school and are setting off tomorrow for Skye, Ullapool, Inverness, Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen and Dundee the rest of this week.

Last year, I was introducing people around Scotland to the Fair Trade Nation campaign. This year, with recent poll findings that 1 in 4 Scots now know about the campaign in mind, I have noticed a tangible growth in awareness of fair trade in general and of the Fair Trade Nation campaign in particular.

Over 2 million people in Scotland already know that Scotland is working to lead the way as a Fair Trade Nation, and, after this Fairtrade Fortnight, word will continue to spread. Over the past year, more towns have become Fairtrade Towns, more schools are working to become Fairtrade Schools, more local authorities have become Fairtrade Zones and Fife is even working to become the world’s first Fairtrade Kingdom.

We are well on our way to becoming a Fair Trade Nation and the next year will be exciting as we seek to intensify our work with universities, local authorities, towns and helping local groups to work as effectively as possible and network more with other groups throughout Scotland.

Thanks to all who’ve come along to events we’ve spoken at and to those who’ve worked so hard to plan and host events during Fairtrade Fortnight in Scotland. You are helping Scotland lead the world on fair trade activity.

Towera has certainly been impressed and she has been telling audiences everywhere we’ve gone:
‘…the power is in your hands to change the lives of people in places like Malawi through buying fair trade. You are leading the world by working to become a Fair Trade Nation. Join the campaign and change people’s lives.’

This from Written Questions on Tuesday 10/12/08 in Scottish Parliament:

Fair Trade

James Kelly (Glasgow Rutherglen) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to promote fair trade. (S3W-18190)
 

Linda Fabiani: The Scottish Government remains committed to promoting fair trade and supporting the Fair Trade Nation campaign. It is for this reason I am pleased to award the Scottish Fair Trade Forum an additional £20,000 for 2008-09 to assist with high visibility advertising and marketing to reach a broad number of people and further increase the public awareness of Fair Trade and Scotland’s Fair Trade Nation campaign.

 
James Kelly (Glasgow Rutherglen) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it has taken to ensure that Fairtrade products are used by agencies across the public sector. (S3W-18191)

 
Linda Fabiani: Guidance issued in 2005 recommends that public bodies should support fair trade and explains how this can be done within procurement legislation by inviting suppliers to include fair trade options in their tenders and by working on a voluntary basis with suppliers once contracts have been awarded.

The Scottish Government leads by example to the public sector and has successfully put this guidance into practice. By working with the catering contractor, the Scottish Government currently offers a wide range of Fairtrade or ethically traded products (including tea, coffee, sugar, juice and snacks) in its staff restaurants. In addition, Fairtrade tea, coffee and sugar are used as standard hospitality for meetings.

I have also written to the Secretary of State for International Development, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the European Commission Office in Edinburgh seeking their views on this matter.

 
James Kelly (Glasgow Rutherglen) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many public agencies are working towards Fairtrade status. (S3W-18193) 
 

Linda Fabiani: This information is not held centrally although all public agencies have received a copy of the guidance issued in 2005 recommending that they should support Fair Trade.

Research indicates that, at present, eight local authorities in Scotland have achieved Fair Trade Zone status. These are Aberdeen, Dundee, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Glasgow and Stirling.

It has been a busy, busy few weeks since I last wrote.

First of all, our first ever Scottish Fairtrade Campaign Day in Dundee on 29 November was attended by over 90 activists from around Scotland. Highlights included workshops on ‘The Future of Fairtrade’ by Veronica Pasteur of the Fairtrade Foundation, feedback from Scottish Fair Trade activists on what they want to do locally and how the Forum can help them (given in my workshop), and a closing address by Andy Good of Equal Exchange.

On 5 December, Scottish Government Minister for EU, External Affairs and Culture, Linda Fabiani MSP, announced the Scottish Government was giving us a funding boost to help us better spread the word about Scotland’s Fair Trade Nation campaign and raise awareness and understanding of Fair Trade in general. To see the full press release, click here. We look forward to the capacity this now gives us to produce promotional materials and reach a broader audience over the next few months.

Aileen Campbell MSP last week introduced a motion in Scottish Parliament (S3M-3040) supporting our joint statement with the National Farmers Union Scotland. The Wales Fair Trade Forum has subsequently followed our lead to work with its own local farmers union to issue a statement agreeing to work together to recognise that farmers everywhere deserve a ’fair deal.’

And, last but not least, today the award letters and cheques for our Small Grant Scheme go out in the post. We received over 20 applications and are giving away over £10,000 in this first round to groups from Arran to Linlithgow to Inverness to boost the Fair Trade projects they would like to carry out. Our second round of grant applications will be open until January 14; applications and guidelines can be found here.

Among our list of criteria to achieve to become a Fair Trade Nation is a requirement that the number of Scots who recognise common Fairtrade branding needs to increase by 5% every year until we reach 75% and 40% of those people buy Fairtrade products regularly.

It seems like a tall order until you consider that research carried out in 2007 by the Scottish Executive International and Europe Social Research Team found the following:

• 68% of secondary school pupils surveyed had at least some idea of what the Fairtrade Mark means, with almost 38% saying they knew ‘quite a lot’ about what it represented.
• 64% of the general public surveyed having some idea of what the Fairtrade Mark means, with 24% saying they knew ‘quite a lot.’
• Of all those who responded, 53% they buy at least one Fairtrade product a year.

To put this another way, in February 2008 the Fairtrade Foundation released its annual figures and revealed that 75% of the UK public recognised the Fairtrade Mark. Their 2006 figures found that awareness of Fairtrade in Scotland was among the highest in the UK, at 61%.

Given that general awareness in Scotland rose 3% between 2006 and 2007, and that was before Scotland even had a Fair Trade Nation campaign, this means we are in a good place. The Scottish Fair Trade Forum is now leading the drive to raise awareness and understanding of Fair Trade in Scotland and we expect figures to go up. It was also before an official Fairtrade Schools award was launched by the Fairtrade Foundation in October 2007, and over 200 schools in Scotland are now registered as working toward the award; Fair Trade education in schools is preparing the next generation of adult consumers to think about the impact of how they shop.

Now is a time of huge opportunity to promote awareness and understanding of Fair Trade in Scotland, to be proud that Scotland will be one of the world’s first Fair Trade Nations and to work to change mindsets and habits to make sure that the impact we have on the people who make the goods we purchase is a positive one.

We’re well on our way!

Regards,
Betsy

Welcome to the new Scottish Fair Trade Forum website!

Over the past year, we at the Forum have been hard at work setting up the systems to get us up and running as an organisation, building solid working relationships with Fair Trade Organisations in Scotland and elsewhere, bringing Fairtrade producers to local events throughout Scotland and spreading the word among the many committed Fair Trade campaigners and groups in Scotland that we’re here to support them.

It is exciting to look forward and even to revel a bit in what a time of opportunity this is for Fair Trade in Scotland. The Scottish Fair Trade Forum is one of only two organisations in the world of its kind. Scotland’s Fair Trade Nation campaign is one Scots can be proud of, because Scotland is leading the way in defining the future of Fair Trade, setting the standard for what Fair Trade campaigners can accomplish by working together toward a common goal.

This campaign belongs to everyone in Scotland and we want this website to reflect that. We want Fair Trade-enthusiastic groups and organisations from all sectors and regions in Scotland to build their own webpages, upload information about local Fair Trade activity and help us build a space that is a genuine reflection of the very active Fair Trade community in Scotland.

Enjoy the website and, as always, keep in touch!

Warm regards,
Betsy