Fairtrade Fortnight Fun 23rd Feb - 8th March 2015

Over Fairtrade Fortnight (23rd February–8th March) this year, students from all years participated in helping to raise awareness for Fairtrade – and some money! Over both sites, chocolate selling took place, with members of the Imberhorne Fairtrade Steering Group selling Fairtrade certified chocolate and cookies around the school! Someone from every year helped by buying some! This has become a tradition at Imberhorne, with the chocolate selling scheme now in its 5th year. The Steering Group is please to announce that the chocolate selling scheme this year has raised £238.20 to our cause.The Steering Group also gave assemblies to all seven year groups. In these, they explained the plight of the Third World farmer, and how we, the consumer, and the supermarkets and manufacturers have an important role to play – in making these people richer and poorer. They then explained how Fairtrade aims to fix this. All comments about the assemblies were very positive – and many teachers pointed out how good it was to see student led assemblies, as all the people who wrote and delivered the assemblies were student members of the Steering Group.On Tuesday 3rd March, an outside organisation called Koolskools (who supply Fairtrade school uniforms) visited Imberhorne to give a presentation to the Year 7s about the global supply chain and the effect Fairtrade has within it. They particularly focused on the cotton supply chain, something which is very important to schools. The Steering Group also informed the Year 7s about extreme poverty, and how rife it is in the world. The Year 9s at the same time had a presentation with Mr R. Langstone in the Main Hall, where they were shown some films highlighting the exploitation of workers in the Third World. The main event of the Fortnight though was the Fairtrade Day at Lower school. Year 7s had been tasked to come up two or three ‘unfair’ game stalls per Form, to set-up and play during the lunchtime of the 6th March. The stalls were a great success, with 9 out of the 10 Forms represented, and the event was bigger and better than last year! Special congratulations must go to 7R PFO, who raised a whopping £94.96 – much more than the other Forms. The Year 9s participated in an “Unfair Dodgeball Match” against the teachers – which got very competitive! Students paid £1 to play one match of dodgeball, and the crowd watching seemed to enjoy the entertainment a lot! The dodgeball managed to raise £25.10. Deputy Town Mayor, Cllr Dick Sweatman, attended the event, and commented on how well it was ran and how it was good to see students so enthusiastic.Overall, Fairtrade Fortnight 2015 was bigger and better than last year, and raised much more money! In total, we managed to raise £431.30 over the two weeks, which will all be going to our investment scheme with “Lend with Care”, an organisation providing loans to Third World producers, the individuals of which will be decided by the students.