Fair Traders of Australia : Launched May 6th

Fairtrade Fortnight is well under way. I had a great time at the Fairtrade Market at Manly on Saturday. The atmosphere was great with music, lots of colour, face painting and pot painting for kids – and plenty of yummy Fairtrade coffee for the grown ups. I met lots of lovely and inspiring people selling all sorts of gorgeous Fairtrade goodies. I was also there for the launch of Fair Traders of Australia.



Manly Fairtrade Market

Fair Traders of Australia was officially launched at the Manly Fair Trade Market by Cheryl Kernot, Chair of FTAANZ. There are currently ten businesses that have successfully been assessed against the Ten Standards of Fairtrade, and are now endorsed Fair Traders.


Cheryl Kernot, Fair Traders of Australia Launch

Fair Traders of Australia are businesses that all have Fairtrade at the core of what they do. That means they work actively to help support a fair trading environment for the producers of the products they sell. This in turn helps to create further opportunities for the producers. The ten standards of Fairtrade also ask Fair Traders of Australia to ensure that there is no child exploitation or forced labour used in the production of their goods, and that work practices are non-discriminating and support gender equity.


Warp & Weft

One thing I really like about the ten standards applied to the Fair Traders of Australia, is that they are also assessed for environmental sustainability practices. This is great, as so often it is difficult to weight up environmental sustainability with ethical standards regarding working conditions when you are shopping. With Fair Traders of Australia you can feel confident that all the bases are covered.

Barachala

I was excited to see that Better World Arts, the makers of my favourite cushion, are one of the ten accredited Fair Traders of Australia. They had a beautiful selection at the market – I was sorely tempted to buy another cushion for the couch. But it was a tough choice, there were oodles of rainbow coloured handmade silk items from Nurturing Threads, and beautiful hand woven and dyed Andean hats and scarves from Warp & Weft (great name - don’t you think?) and startlingly gorgeous boots and shoes from Barachala. Carpets for Communities was competing in the Colour Olympics with handmade rugs that you just wanted to bury yourself in.


Carpets for Communities

I buried myself in some really great coffee from Sacred Grounds, and scored a free plant when I entered the raffle. The face painting and pot painting for the kids was all free too, such a wonderful gathering of like minds and smiling faces.


Nurturing Threads

There is still a week to go of Fairtrade Fortnight, so get out amongst it and join in. I’m a friend of Fairtrade Australia on Facebook, which is a great way to keep up to date with what is happening. You can get started on Saturday at the Organic Food Markets in Lilyfield, Sydney. Maybe I’ll see you there.

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