This afternoon I was able to attend a preview of the Autumn collection of Fairtrade crafts from Traidcraft. The company has come a very long way since the early days when crafts were pretty amateurish and only bought by enthusiasts whose high principles overcame their aesthetic considerations. The items in this Autumn's catalogue wouldn't be out of place in top of the market stores around the country, beautifully designed and finished. I ordered quite a few items for the stall at church and some for presents in readiness for Christmas.
We were reminded of the importance of dedicated Fairtrade companies such as Traidcraft which invest heavily in the development of new products and in support for producers as they work towards becoming accredited with the Fairtrade Foundation. We were also reminded that although the amount of Fairtrade goods sold in this country has increased enormously over the past few years we need to increase it much more if people in developing countries are to really reap the benefits.
An interesting statistic: It's been calculated that increasing trade in Africa by 1% would lift 128million people out of poverty! That's quite a lot of money if we just look at it as a block, but if each of us bought one or two more things from African sources (especially Fairtrade things) we'd start to make that difference.
And when we came out there was an added bonus - we'd missed the rain while we were in there.