The students of 3^C Mercurio in our Institute carried out a series of activities on Fair Trade within the sub-projects which are part of another Comenius project, called
EurOpenMinded, in which our school is participating as a partner school.
This is their report.Fair trade is a movement that wants to combat the exploitation of small disadvantaged producers in underdeveloped countries of the world by transnational companies.
Fairtraders think that everything started from globalization and from the need of western companies to use cheap labour in less wealthy parts of the world to undercut high costs of production.
The Fair Trade Movement was born in the 1950s when religious and social welfare groups began importing articles in specialised shops. At the beginning these products were mostly handycrafts but, nowadays, they are foodstuffs such as coffee, chocolate, dry fruit and many kinds of clothing and furniture that can also and easily be found in supermarkets and big stores.
The symbol on the left (with a yellow curve and a blue one, almost forming a circle), is
the FLO (Fair Trade Label) symbol and belongs to a corporation that helps distributing fair trade products all over the world.
The other logo on the right belongs to FTO (Fair Trade Organization). Together
they oversee the certification of products. In order to be certified a product must undergo a rigorous auditing process and the goods and services sold must create opportunities for marginalized groups, transparent management and full accountability of the production procedure should be demonstrated at any time and, above all,
their sale should pay the producer a fair price.
In 2000 a Fair Trade Town Movement was founded when Garstang, a small town in the North West of England, committed itself to promote sales of Fair Trade products and to ensure more farmers in developing countries a fair deal.
The local government of the town where we live – Rovigo – shares the same goals at the basis of this movement. It is working in order to take practical action around sustainable development.
We have recently talked in our school (High School for Accountants) about this topic and thought over it with the help of an expert. Some of us have found out it is time to engage oneself in some concrete action.
Everybody should do something for the developing countries. And something can be done not only by buying fair trade products but also by getting well informed about business transactions between the North and the South of the world.
Here is a quotation from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) that should always be kept in mind: "Getting money is not all a man's business; to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of business life".
The students of 3^C Mercurio
ITC De Amicis
This is a short article in French which describes a school experience of two first classes - 1^C and 1^D - of our Institute whose students carried out a school project about the environment.
From 15 to 19 March 2010, the second project meeting of the "Knowing me, you, us" Comenius Project was held in Agen, France. The participants from our institute were four students from class 2^A ERICA - Anna Paparella, Fabiola Sandri, Lara Destro e Jessica Mazzaro - and two teachers, Sara Nalli e Michele Bregolin.
