A tale of two Fairtrade Towns

By Harriet Lamb, Executive Director, Fairtrade Foundation

The vibrant network of campaigners for Fairtrade spreads across the UK, creating common ground for otherwise very different types of communities.

This weekend, I popped down to visit my mother in the buzzing village of Milverton, snug in the rolling Somerset hills and to speak with the local society about Fairtrade.

They are already keen fans. Every Wednesday, there is a Fair Trade Cafe held in the open space of a modernised Methodist Hall. People take turns making coffee and selling lovely home-made cakes.

Todd is there with the Traidcraft stall – although he was moaning that not everyone likes to buy the out-of-date biscuits! I will have to visit more often as I have an iron stomach and never mind the odd sell-by date. He is also struggling to keep sales up now so many people can buy Fairtrade in all the local stores and supermarkets, but as Mary chips in : ‘They used to laugh at me when I started doing the Traidcraft stall thirty years ago! Now I know just how right I was to believe in it!’.

Once a month, they have a lovely home-made and very cheap lunch for people. As a result, says Liz McDouell, one of the Fair Trade Cafe organisers: ‘Outside the door, you will see everything from zimmer-frames to buggies.’ She sees it as a place where everyone can go for a chat with their friends and neighbours, to have a break while the kids play with the toys and run around, or to have a quiet coffee. It’s just a lovely community get-together, and Fairtrade was almost the excuse that they could all unite around. 

In a very different place, it’s a similar story. With an icy wind sweeping through the dreary concrete underpass at the station, in December I visited Luton. Sister Maire, standing by the grey lift, was waving cheerfully at me – and started chatting away before I could reach her. From the Luton Fairtrade Group, she had come to take my colleagues and I to the Town Council celebrations to mark Luton becoming a Fairtrade Town – which means there are now 529 in the UK.

She bustled along, round more sixties architectural mistakes, all the way enthusing about the Fairtrade group, and the many difficulties they have had to overcome. Luton is not having an easy time, and struggles with high levels of deprivation. Its best hopes for an economic take-off are pinned on winning another runway for London – but that’s very unsure.

Whatever its problems, Luton certainly boasts the most inspiring Fairtrade group I have ever met – and believe me, I have met a few. The Town Council was full for the meeting: primary school kids kicked off with a hilarious song they had made up themselves about why you should buy different Fairtrade products – I want to get a recording for when you are put on hold on the Fairtrade Foundation phone but fear it may prove complicated!

I then spoke the Chief Executive of the Council and several councillors, including a woman who comes from St Vincent in the Caribbean and so knows first-hand about the importance of Fairtrade for banana farmers.

Next to participate were the youth; then people from every single faith community in the area – the Mosque, the Hindu temple, the Sikh Gurdwara, and many shades of Christian, then the local employers, the Co-op supermarket, and local non-governmental organisations such as Cafod.

They have, it seems, got Fairtrade into every nook and cranny of Luton. And to top it all, they presented the Foundation with generous cheques to support our work on innovation so new producers can join the system, with prawn producers top of the list. 

It was such a pure pleasure to see the whole of the Luton community coming together behind the goal of Fairtrade. As important as their objective, was the way that they had achieved it, by pulling in so many parts of the community. And all inspired by, Jonny the most dynamic priest from India – now working in Luton – and sporting his silk kurta Indian wedding outfit, as befitted such a great occasion!

Once again, as important as the steps they are taking for Fairtrade, is the way that this group was organising. So that they are helping build fairness, just in the very way they organise.

From Milverton to Luton, people are so emphatic in this desire for greater fairness. It is indeed refreshing to see politicians try to outcompete each other on who cares more for ‘responsible capitalism’ and the public are right behind them, wanting concrete action. Certainly people want capitalism to be fair, they want companies to behave responsibly – in the way they buy from farmers overseas or in the way they treat people here. And they are getting on with building that fairer society in their own communities.