It’s Fairtrade Fortnight 2019 (25th February to 10th March 2019). And they want to invite you to join in the Teesside Cocoa Journey on Saturday 2nd March.
The women of the CAYAT cocoa producing co-op in Cote d’Ivoire walk everywhere. They use their Fairtrade Premium to provide clean water, a nursery school, solar panels for electricity, and other benefits to their community which we take for granted here in the UK. In Ghana the Kapua Kookoo producers have used their Premium to fund bikes for farmers who are a long way from the centre of their plantation and a bus to take groups to family weddings and funerals, meaning they don’t have to miss a day’s work to travel there.
Here in Teesside Fairtrade decided to use those modes of transport to highlight the plight of the cocoa farmers who don’t get Fairtrade prices or Fairtrade premium, who are living on less than half the amount needed to have decent food, healthcare and education.