Taking place from 22 February - 7 March, Fairtrade Fortnight offers students and staff the chance to learn more about Fairtrade and get involved in community action.
Date: 12 February 2021
This year Fairtrade Fortnight, which takes place from 22 February to 7 March 2021, highlights the growing challenges that climate change brings to farmers and workers in the communities Fairtrade works with.
Events such as droughts, crop diseases, floods, heatwaves and shrinking harvests as well as lower prices for crops have had a dramatic impact on farmers, and now more than ever, we need to support them by choosing Fairtrade.
London Met students and staff can join an online festival that will bring together many other universities and businesses to learn about the Fairtrade and hear the voices of farmers as well as the stories from climate campaigners.
To celebrate the Fairtrade Fortnight, the University’s Sustainability Team will run an online talk about Fairtrade work in the University and how students can get involved. Guest speakers from Tower Hamlets Fairtrade Steering Group will also join to talk about their wider community work on these topics. Event booking will be available on the Sustainability webpage.
The University currently holds the Fairtrade University 1 Star Award and it has reaffirmed the commitment by joining the Fairtrade University Award programme for the next two years. By working with stakeholders across the University, London Met will continue to promote global citizenship, social justice and support sustainable farming practices.
Zanda Pipira, Sustainability Officer, said: "We would like to expand on our Fairtrade work and would like to hear from external businesses and local Fairtrade campaigners about different projects or initiatives to collaboratively support Fairtrade. By working together, we can create more opportunities for our students to learn about Fairtrade or ethical consumption issues off-campus within their coursework or dissertations."
A recent Fairtrade Survey (2020) showed that 88% of students who took part were very concerned about Human Rights and 96% were very concerned about workers being treated badly. When it comes to buying products with ethical credentials, students also expressed interest in joining a campaign group or a society and would be willing to volunteer for an organisation working on the issues.
The survey shows that there is a great need to support students as well as staff and visitors in their journey to ethical consumption, and for the University to constantly review and improve its supply chain, issues which the Fairtrade Award work to address.
What is Fairtrade?
Fairtrade ensures that better prices, decent working conditions and fair terms of trade are applied for farmers and workers. It supports the development of farming and working communities to give them more control over their futures and protect the environment in which they live and work.
The University and the Students' Union have been working together to create Fairtrade policy to commit to our operational considerations such as procurement and catering, campaigning and influencing, engagement and communications.
Read on our previous Fairtrade work as well as our case study.
If you are a student or staff member interested to work on the Fairtrade Award together with the University, register to the Fairtrade Award online platform.
