Audience in York St John chapel
The annual event gets underway
On the 12th March in York St John Chapel the 4th Annual Yorkshire Fairtrade Schools Conference took place with 160 participants in attendance. It was a fantastic event where the Lord Mayor, Councillor Ian Gillies, presented the 2015 Fairtrade School Award to five schools. Their fair trade work involves regular school events, work within the curriculum and competitions to encourage whole school involvement. One school even involved the Archbishop of York during their Fair Trade fortnight celebrations.
Aztec Arts stall
Fairer World stall
At the Conference, Applefields and Cawood Schools delivered presentations to share and encourage others on their fair trade journeys. Eight teachers gained their Level 1 Global Teacher Award and seven community groups received their Mandala panels from the Lord Mayor. The event also celebrated everything ‘Fair Trade’ and enabled schools, FT retailers and supporters to share all the fantastic work that is taking place within Yorkshire.
A great talk was given by Joanna Pollard of Aztec Arts, who shared her personal experience of meeting and supporting communities from around the world by selling their goods through Fair Trade. Hannah Flint from International Justice Mission also delivered a well received workshop on Modern Day Slavery and shared how Fair Trade plays a part in addressing this issue. A workshop was also delivered to pupils on Ghanaian Adinkra symbols and Mandalas with the aim of generating a Fair Trade Mandala panel.
Workshop participants with their mandalas
Adinkra symbols on Divine chocolate wrappers (contents pre-consumed!)
A BIG THANK you goes out to York Fair Trade Forum, Centre for Global Education, York , York St John University, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Community York, and workshop facilitators and Fair Trade retailers for all their hard work and contributions small and large in making the event ‘the best ever!‘