The 2017/18 Annual Review summarises the Forum's activities over the past 12 months. This year the Scottish Fair Trade Forum has developed further relationships with public sector organisations, and kept taking action to support the education sector at all level. In this regard, we have supported the University of Strathclyde in achieving its Fairtrade status in June 2017. Also very important has been the achievement of the Fairtrade Zone status by Dumfries as well as Galloways and South Ayrshire’s local authorities. Amongst the events that took place this year, we are particularly proud of having welcomed two important representatives of Mzuzu Coffee planter co-operative from Malawi, to take part in the Fair Trade Fiesta, and to host the fifth annual Scottish Fair Trade Awards ceremony in Paisley. You can view the Annual Review here.
More than two years have passed since Scotland achieved Fair Trade Nation status, as only the second nation in the world to do so. Now other nations and regions are looking at our model as a way of further promoting Fair Trade. The Forum has continued raising awareness of Fair Trade across Scotland as well as maintaining and further developing the good relationships with producers and their communities across the globe. This year, we welcomed visitors from Malawi, the Dominican Republic, Mauritius and Ghana, whose stories and experiences inspired communities and campaigners, old and new.
It has been another busy year for the Scottish Fair Trade Forum. After achieving Fair Trade Nation Status we continued to work hard in supporting new Fair Trade town and zone applications. One of our key focus this past year was to create direct links between Scotland and Fair Trade producers through the 2013 producer tours. On top of all the hard work we managed to celebrate Scotland's Fair Trade Nation Status with the Fair Trade Festival which brought together 400 campaigners and supporters.
