Promoting Fair Trade -- Communicating the Message
Churches can help their congregations and others to learn more about Fair Trade -- what it is, how it fits within a Christian context, how it benefits producers, and where to find fairly traded products for retail or wholesale.
POSTERS
The Fairtrade Foundation, Traidcraft and other organisations produce attractive, colourful posters that many churches find very helpful. Churches in dual-use buildings and churches with halls that are used by a wide variety of organisations can find this a particularly effective way of spreading the word beyond their congregations. To obtain copies of available Fairtrade Foundation’s posters, go to the Fairtrade Foundation's online ordering page or ring 020 7440 7676. New posters come out for Fairtrade Fortnight each year. A simple Fair Trade A4 poster can be downloaded at the BAFTS website .
You can also make your own signs -- Wheatley United Reformed Church has, in addition to the Fairtrade Foundation posters, a notice in its kitchen stating that it is a Fairtrade Church and requesting that those who hire the kitchen use Fairtrade products if possible. And a member of the Oxford Friends’ Meeting House has done delightful, humorous signs with a Fairtrade message that festoon the Meeting House kitchen. Be sure, though, that if you make a sign with the FAIRTRADE Mark on it, you are conforming to the Fairtrade Foundation’s guidelines for use of the logo .
NEWSLETTERS, MAGAZINES AND WEBSITES
A note telling where to find Fair Trade products? A list of local Fairtrade Fortnight events? Information about what Fair Trade means? A Fair Trade prayer? The story of a producer? A few paragraphs on the theology of Fair Trade? There are so many ways that you can introduce Fair Trade into your newsletter!
Some newsletter offerings can be seen on the internet: one from St Andrew’s Clewer, for example, offers a calendar for Fairtrade Fortnight (www.standrewsclewer.org.uk/pdf/MessengerMarch2004.pdf). For a ready-made piece for your newsletter, try some of the articles from Traidcraft . CCOW also creates materials available for magazine use; to join our Fair Trade email list, send an email to maranda@ccow.org.uk with FT List in the title.
Speaking of the web . . . what about the church website? If you’re a Fairtrade Church, you can proclaim it on your site as Deanway United Church in Chalfont St Giles does. Anglican churches in the Oxford Diocese have an easy way to do this; when you are listing your church’s features on the diocesan “A Church Near You" feature, just click on the “Fairtrade church” option to add a small Fairtrade sign to your entry. Another good idea is to follow the lead of churches like the Roman Catholic parish of St. George Buckland and Blessed Hugh Faringdon and offer links to Fair Trade organizations both local and national.
LOCAL MEDIA
Having an exciting Fair Trade event? Getting it into the media can help interest people in the event and raise the profile of Fair Trade issues at the same time. If you’re contacting local media, a good press release will help get your story noticed. A press release doesn’t have to be elaborate – just give WHEN and WHERE the event will be occurring, WHAT will be happening, and WHO is involved. And don’t forget the WHY – a few sentences that say what Fair Trade is and why you’re involved with it. Be sure also to give contact details in case the radio station/paper wants to contact you to ask any questions. If you don’t hear from them, follow up your press release with a phone call. If you’re sending your release to newspapers beforehand, you can add a note explaining what photo opportunities might be available. If you’re sending the release to papers after the event, send your own pictures. [Make sure that you have permission from parents if the pictures include children]
Local radio can also be very helpful – our area is covered by BBC Radio Oxford, BBC Three Counties Radio and BBC Radio Berkshire. Numbers for “phoning in” stories and email addresses are on their websites (go to www.bbc.co.uk/and in the phone books. You might also like to try commercial radio stations, such as Fox FM, and/or your local Christian station. If you have an event which is particularly visual, it might be worth sending your press release to television stations, also.
Denominational papers are also often happy to carry stories about churches’ Fairtrade events. Email your press releases to The Door (door@oxford.anglican.org), the Methodist Recorder (see guidelines at www.methodistrecorder.co.uk/mrwrite.htm), the Baptist Times (see contact details at baptisttimes.co.uk/contactu.htm), or the United Reformed Church’s “Reform” (reform@urc.org.uk).
LOCAL FAIR TRADE GUIDES “But where can I find Fairtrade goods?”
If people in your congregation or wider community don’t know how to access Fairtrade products, you can produce a local guide to help them. Depending on the size of your town, this can be either a small or a fairly large project. If it’s the latter, it’s a great one to do ecumenically – divide shopping areas up amongst the churches, and let the survey begin! A committee of Churches Together for Chesham, which has been one of the driving forces in Chesham’s Fairtrade Town campaign, recently put out a listing of Fairtrade outlets in the town; it’s an invaluable resource. There are different formats for such guides: you might choose simply to list the names of shops that carry Fairtrade products. Or perhaps you would like to indicate which products are sold where – many people find this helpful, though it does need more frequent updating. One enterprising church did a “shopping list” of Fairtrade products, listing items and putting under each the locations where it could be purchased. If you’d like to look on the web at some examples from different-sized towns and cities, try www.Fairtrade4Chesham.co.uk, www.faringdonfairtrade.org.uk/Get_Involved_/Directory/directory.html, www.mkfairtrade.org.uk (Milton Keynes), www.oxfordfairtrade.org.uk (a web-based version of the Oxford print guide), and www.risc.org.uk/readingfairtrade/shopping.htm. (There’s also a web guide for Reading, www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/features/2004/03/fairtrade_shops.shtml.) CCOW has hard copies of the Chesham, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Reading and Slough guides.
TAKING THE FAIRTRADE MESSAGE WITH YOU WHEN YOU SHOP
Some shops and supermarkets carry a wonderful range of Fairtrade products. Some don’t. If your local is one of the latter, church members can request that they carry a wider range. For supermarkets, check what products the chain has available (The most up--to-date guides will be at www.fairtrade.org.uk/products). Then use the Fairtrade Foundation's "Stock It!" postcard (you can order free copies), a store request book, or ask to talk to the manager or write letters to ask for those products to be in your branch. For smaller, local shops, speak to the shop owner about options. If your shop doesn’t have immediate ways of accessing supplies, you might suggest a sale-or-return trial from a nearby specialised Fairtrade shop or Traidcraft key contact. Whatever the case, remember to buy the products once they are on the shelves. Otherwise they won’t stay there . . . shop owners can’t afford to subsidise Fair Trade!
TAKING THE FAIRTRADE MESSAGE WITH YOU WHEN YOU EAT OUT
Who would have thought, even five years ago, that by 2005 Costa Coffee, Starbucks, Marks and Spencers’ Café Revive, AMT, and Pret a Manger would all be offering Fairtrade beverages? And AMT and Marks and Spencers Café Revive don’t offer any other kind of coffee! There are also numerous independent restaurants that serve Fairtrade beverages. But there are still a lot of cafes and restaurants that don’t offer any Fairtrade option. To help people who want to change this, the Fairtrade Foundation has produced “Order up” cards. The card, designed to be handed in at your favourite eating and drinking spots, signals your request for Fairtrade products – and has a detachable component that the restauranteur can mail in to receive details of how to access commercial Fairtrade suppliers. Why not hand these out in church, explaining how to use them and encouraging members to hand them in to their favourite eateries? CCOW has copies available.