What Can I Do?

Some suggestions for personal action . . . .

• Pray for Fair Trade. Give thanks for its successes: the benefits it has brought producers, the lives transformed and saved, the chance it offers consumers to live ethically, the inspiration given to those who would like to see a fairer world in which God's commandments of love and justice are obeyed. Pray for wisdom for those who guide the movement, strength for those who have to take hard decisions about choosing ethics over profits, strength and discernment for consumers as they make their choices, and the growth of the movement to allow more and more producers to take part.

• Make a decision that when you are purchasing goods, you will go for the fairly traded option wherever it's appropriate and you are able. With more than 2,500 FAIRTRADE-Marked products in a wide variety of categories and an ever-growing range of fairly traded clothing, home furnishings, stationery and crafts, there are more options than ever.

• Help to convert others. If your church isn't already a Fairtrade Church, encourage it to become one. Join the Fairtrade Foundation's "Fairtrade at Work" or Fairtrade Schools or Fairtrade Universities campaigns and convert your workplace/school/university. If your town is a Fairtrade Town, find out how you can join in the Fairtrade activities; if it isn't, join or form a group to further this goal. A listing of local groups with websites is in our "finding out more" section; contact us for details of other groups.

• Ask for Fair Trade. If your supermarket isn't stocking all the Fairtrade goods that their parent company carries, request that they do so. If your local shop isn't carrying Fairtrade goods, see if you can work with them to enable them to do so (contact CCOW for more details). Just make sure, though, that if you do this, you follow through by buying the products yourself and encouraging others to do so -- no store will keep stocking goods they can't sell.

• Make Fair Trade fun. Follow Fairtrade Man's challenge and eat only fairly traded products for a period of time -- and write about your experiences. Or (slightly easier!) hold a Fairtrade recipe contest, in which people submit recipes with a minimum number of fairly traded ingredients. . . . .

• Find out firsthand about the benefits of Fair Trade. Each year, the Fairtrade Foundation and various Fair Trade companies arrange producer visits during Fairtrade Fortnight. Attend one of their talks, ask questions, and find out what it's all about. Or, if you feel you could make the benefits justify the carbon involved, visit producers via Traidcraft's People to People tours.

• Make a donation to further Fair Trade. Traidcraft is a company, but it also has a charitable wing that provides services -- such as market advice -- for people who want to break into the Fair Trade market. To find out more and donate, go to the Traidcraft website.

Photographs courtesy of the Fairtrade Foundation, www.fairtrade.org.uk