Fairtrade
Our Youth Group runs a fair-trade stall in the Parish Hall after the monthly All Age Eucharist service. On the stall you will find everything from chocolate to teabags, Christmas cards (in season!) to biscuits and health foods.
What is Fairtrade?
Fairtrade ensures that producers in developing countries get a fair price for their produce, and that their income is guaranteed, so they have better financial security. It also treats producers as equal partners, reducing exploitation, and ensures safe and non-exploitative working conditions.
The Fairtrade mark sets the standards for a range of produce. It is placed on supermarket products that contain ingredients that meet these standards. Not all produce has had standards set for it, so some products which are actually fairly traded cannot yet carry the Fairtrade mark.
At the moment there is an international standard for fair trade for tea, coffee, sugar, cocoa, bananas, mangoes, orange juice, and honey. Other products may be traded ethically, under guidelines from the Ethical Trading Initiative – ask the companies about their policy on ethical trading. Most supermarkets now stock fairly traded tea and coffee – a wider range of goods is available in Oxfam and from the Traidcraft catalogue.
Why should the church get involved?
Fairtrade is rooted in the Christian faith: ‘Our love is not just to be words or mere talk, but something real and active’ (1 John 3:18).
As a body, the Church is called to live out the values of the Kingdom of God here on earth – and be concerned for love and justice. So we need to consider how what we buy reflects that. Buying fairly traded products is one way of putting our talk into action.
If you are already confirmed or are preparing for confirmation, you may like to think about what it means to share bread with others in the Eucharist – what does it really mean to be ‘one body because we all share in one bread’?
When we eat fairly traded products, we’re not giving to charity, we’re just paying a fair price for what we’re buying. It shows that we respect the people who grew the food. Actually eating the food engages us physically with the issues of trade justice, more than just donating money.
We believe that the Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Godmanchester, exists to build up the individual and corporate spiritual life of our Church and to spread the love of Christ through word and deed, by enabling those who live and work within our town to come into contact with God’s love and come to faith in Christ.