Fairtrade Chronicles

Story 2

We, in Llanelli, have been working very hard to become a Fairtrade Zone and to maintain the status.

We have worked with local businesses, churches, schools, all the community councils, the Rural Council and the Town Council. In November 2017, we started our Facebook page, Fairtrade Llanelli. In January 2018, we had our first annual Fairtrade party which was supported by Lee Waters, our AM. We supported the Fairtrade Football Competition.

Fairtrade Fortnight happens every year , the last week of February and the first week of March. This year we had a Fairtrade coffee morning with the Catholic Church, the students of Coleg Sir Gar welcomed us for the morning, an Unfair Funfair at Coedcae school, a couple of Fairtrade stalls, a Fairtrade Tea at Llanelly House with Nia Griffith and so on. It was a great success ! At the end of April we achieved FAIRTRADE ZONE STATUS.

In July we launched our new website, donated by Paragon Consultants, a local IT firm. They set it up and they manage it for us free of charge.-

www.llanelli-fairtrade.paragonconsultants.co.uk

In August our local Mayor held a quiz night to raise funds for Fairtrade.

Fairtrade Llanelli visited our twin town, Agen to meet with local councillors to talk about Fairtrade. It was a great afternoon sharing ideas but we know now why Wales is the world’s first Fairtrade country and Great Britain is the world leader in Fairtrade. It is the work that volunteers do all over the country from Wales to Scotland to Northern Ireland to England, from church to chapel to mosque all working together to help farmers in the developing world so that people who work hard growing the crops for us that we cannot grow, can have a decent life with access to maybe a tiny maternity hospital with one midwife or have the chance of a home where 7 or 8 families had been forced to live together in the same occupancy that makes Fairtrade so worthwhile.

In November, Fairtrade Llanelli was invited to be a regular columnist for the West Wales Chronicle. We are very proud of that as it is a huge achievement.

We regularly hold Fairtrade stalls all round the constituency, which is the Fairtrade Zone. CETMA set up a series of One Stop shops to give advice to local people and Fairtrade was a regular stall at these events.

Future Planning in 2019, we have our annual party on Saturday January 19^th.

It takes place in the Selwyn Samuel Centre from 3 – 6 so come early to get your seats. We have great performers like Loud Applause Rising Stars, The Phil Harmonics, CorMeibion, the Carmarthen Ukeleles and a DJ for party music. It’s only £2 entry fee which includes a free Fairtrade Tea and two raffles, one for general prizes and the other where the prize is a robot vacuum cleaner. Just think all this available to you just for £2. A chance of a lifetime.

COME TO OUR FAIRTRADE PARTY AND HAVE SOME FUN

 Fairtrade Fortnight

It takes place in the last week of February and the first week of March.

We are planning for that at the moment.

We will have our regular banana giveaway supported by the Mayor

We are having infants schools doing some drawings and their work will be displayed in Llanelly House and Nia Griffith , our MP, will present either a rugby or a football to every school that enters. It is not a competition.

We are looking at other options at the moment.

General Ideas

If you have any ideas that you think we could use do not hesitate to contact us.

If you want to help you would be very welcome. We love volunteers.

Fairtrade never stops working to promote itself to the local people of Llanelli and then we apply again for Fairtrade status in April 2019. Wish us luck and keep your fingers crossed !