Fair play, Fair pay, Fair Trade- Westport as a Fairtrade Town

The Fairtrade market in Ireland is now worth over €11.6million yearly and supermarkets are continuously changing to meet these needs. Marks and Spencer’s sells only Fairtrade tea and coffee, SuperQuinn sells only Fairtrade bananas, Tesco has up to 70 Fairtrade products available, Robert Roberts are changing all their tea and coffee to Fairtrade, Lidl have their own Fairtrade brand and the list goes on.

But it’s not just the big chains who are doing their bit. From 2005 shops in Westport have begun stocking Fairtrade Products as part of their support for the Fairtrade Town Project for Westport. In fact if it wasn't for the support of shops like Sean O'Connor's Supervalu, Ylang Ylang, Hoban's Centra Stores, Nicola's Food Emporium, Country Fresh and many, many more, Westport would not have achieve Fairtrade Status earlier this year.

Many more towns are now working to achieve Fairtrade status and with the increased awareness and increased demand for Fairtrade products we are guaranteeing a fair deal for more third world producers.

Recently members of the Westport Fairtrade Steering committee attended the annual Fairtrade Workshop in Dublin Castle. There they heard Sergio Allard Director of Los Robles Fairtrade Wine speak of the benefits Fairtrade had on his community and on his business. Sales have doubled since Los Robles achieved Fairtrade status, which more importantly has improved the quality of life for all the people of Curico, not just the employees. Los Robles have set up a bus service for all the local children to attend school as before the might not be picked up by the public bus service as their fare was not as high as an adults fare. Scholarships are been offered to children who can’t afford further education, these children often become graduates and return to Curico and provide healthcare and other facilities that would not have bee n possible without the premium that Fairtrade guarantees. Poverty in Chile has reduced from 39-13% in the last 10 years and with the help of Fairtrade Sergio hopes this can be reduced even further. Today Fairtrade wines can be bought in a number of outlets in Westport including Dunnes, Supervalu, and Jim McLoughlins.

Westport will be renewing their Fairtrade status this December and according to Edel Hackett the Westport Fairtrade Committee would like to thank everyone for their help so far but also encourage more to get involved.

According to Cllr Keith Martin of the Westport Fairtrade Committee "the possibilities are endless and so simple. Next time you eat a banana, drink tea, eat rice, ask yourself where did it come from. By choosing Fairtrade you are not only helping Third world producers but you are also helping yourself as less fertilizers and sprays are used on Fairtrade products making it safer for you, your family and the producers family."

You can help by buying Fairtrade products, asking your local shopkeeper to stock more Fairtrade products, making your organization a Fairtrade orgnisation, serve Fairtrade Tea and coffee, organising information nights, joining your local Fairtrade group.”

For information on Westport’s Fairtrade group contact ehackett@eircom.net or visit www.fairtradewestport.netfirms.com