Smoothies to celebrate Fair Trade Fortnight in Brighton and Hove

Fair Trade Fortnight is under way in Brighton and Hove with an exhibition at the Jubilee Library.

It includes details of Fair Trade shops and web businesses in Brighton and Hove where people can buy Fair Trade goods.

On Tuesday next week (4 March) people will be offered a chance to make banana smoothies from their own pedal power at the Co-op in Western Road, Hove.

The shop will also be offering customers a chance to sample Fair Trade products.

Fair Trade Fortnight runs from today (Monday 24 February) until Wednesday 5 March having come a long way from small beginnings and high hopes in the 1960s.

Many locally regard it as an important event, not least because Brighton and Hove became Britain’s first Fair Trade City in 2004.

It is no longer the preserve of a few small handicraft shops at the quieter end of a few high streets.

Fair Trade is a global phenomenon with a presence in hundreds of towns and cities worldwide – and it is continuing to grow.

In Brighton and Hove the Fair Trade Steering Group brings together groups and individuals from many walks of life.

They include teachers, charities, small independent shops, Brighton and Hove City Council, the Co-op and others.

Its premise is simple – give growers and producers in the developing world a better deal. A fair price for their goods helps them and their communities.

Supporters point out that for many of us in the West, with our relatively high standard of living, the daily struggle of food production in often inhospitable climates is a world away. The Fair Trade movement brings it closer.

Events in and around Brighton and Hove, including on the Sussex University campus in Falmer, over the next two weeks are intended to show how simple it is to make a difference.

They include a talk by Greg Valerio, founder of Cred Jewellery, after trips to Tanzania and Ethiopia, at St Peter’s Church in Shoreham, tomorrow (Tuesday 25 February).

Find out what a fair price means to the women who work, with Christine Gent, of People Tree and Fairly Covered and newly appointed director of the World Fair Trade Organisation, Asia. She will be speaking at FAIR in Queen’s Road, Brighton, on Thursday 13 March.