Don’t Trade Lives | GWSC Student Forum

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Join passionate high school students from across Monash for an inspiring and empowering student-led forum discussing how YOU can act against modern-day slavery!

It is estimated that today there are 27 million people trafficked into slave-like conditions, many of them children forced to work in exploitative labour, the sex industry and cocoa farming.

At the student forum on April 1, hear how YOU can campaign against children being bought and sold by leading Vision Generation (VGen), World Vision’s national youth movement and supporting its anti-trafficking campaign, Don’t Trade Lives.

The Forum will be hosted by the Vision Generation Group at Glen Waverley Secondary College.

Read more about the DTL Campaign

At the Forum YOU will:

• HEAR from inspiring speakers Tim Costello, World Vision CEO, Chris Varney, Vision Generation National Co-Director and Charlotte Baines, Deputy Mayor City of Monash
• LEARN about the causes of human trafficking and slavery, and solutions like ethical consumerism
• DEVELOP your school’s plan of action against slavery and for Fairtrade Fortnight (2nd-16th May)
• ACT by joining the local Vision Generation Schools Network and support local consumer campaigns to make Monash a Fairtrade City!

Students will have the opportunity to take up leadership of Don’t Trade Lives by starting a VGen Group or resourcing an existing Social Justice Group.

Forum Event Details

Date: Wednesday 1st April Time: 12.30pm (registration) until 3.10pm
Venue: Glen Waverley Secondary College, 21 O’Sullivan Road, Glen Waverley
(right next to Glen Waverley Train Station)
Registration Details: Up to 5 students from each school can attend.
Please send a list of student names and contact details to gwsc@vgroups.vgen.org by Monday 23rd March (schools must organise their own student permission forms and transport)

Contact: For queries, contact Forum Organiser
Daniel Christiansz at gwsc@vgroups.vgen.org or on 0434 858 892
Note: Students will need to bring their own paper, pens and snacks for afternoon tea (light refreshments will also be served) All Forum details can be found athttp://www.vgen.org/vicevents

Read more about Vision Generation and what we do!

Cadbury adopts Fairtrade source

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent

Farmers in Ghana will enjoy a guaranteed income and more profit

The Fairtrade movement hailed a major breakthrough yesterday with the announcement that Britain’s biggest-selling chocolate brand was switching to the ethical standard. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, which sells 300 million bars a year in the UK and Ireland, will source its cocoa from Fairtrade farmers in Ghana, the biggest brand of its kind to make the move.

“This is groundbreaking news for thousands of small farmers in Ghana, enabling all those who buy it to make a real difference,” said Cadbury’s chief executive, Todd Stitzer. The Fairtrade mark was set up as a way of guaranteeing developing world farmers a bigger share of the money generated from products using their raw materials. Some 7.5 million people, including farmers, workers and their families, benefit from products displaying the Fairtrade symbol.

“Farmers are saying that it’s impossible to make ends meet,” said Fairtrade’s head, Harriet Lamb. “People don’t see cocoa as a future. They don’t get enough cash from cocoa so there’s not enough investment.” The new project is designed to create a “virtuous circle” by putting a floor on the price and offering a premium for higher quality beans. “With more income, farmers invest to improve quality and productivity,” she added. “Then they start to spread the benefits and you see banks popping up in villages and thriving markets appearing.”

Forty thousand of Ghana’s 700,000 cocoa farmers will benefit from the first phase of the Cadbury venture, tripling the country’s Fairtrade cocoa production. “Young people are giving up and moving to the cities where there are often no jobs,” Ms Lamb said. “We hope this can be a turning point for the industry.”

Benjamin Atiemo from the cocoa-growing village of Adjeikrom expects to benefit. He said he was concerned about the future of cocoa unless farmers could increase their yields and incomes. Ms Lamb said seven out of 10 people in the UK had heard of Fairtrade products and would buy them if their favourite brands offered the choice.

Cocoa is Ghana’s biggest cash crop and second-largest export earner. The industry has encountered increasing difficulties. Deforestation has reduced the necessary rainforest cover for cocoa cultivation and fragmentation of cocoa farms into hundreds of thousands of smallholdings has inhibited investment.