LEARNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY - AN ACTIVITY TO ENGAGE LEARNERS
Nicola Taylor • September 3, 2019
The 90kg Rice Challenge
The 90kg Rice Challenge is a perfect activity for your school for several reasons:
- Planned lessons in line with the Curriculum for Excellence
- Teaching Resources provided
- Quick and easy to take part
The
90kg Rice Challenge is in its 10th year now and is becoming more and
more popular due to its ease to take part in, its clear message, and its
worthwhile outcome. The simple concept
is that a rice farmer in Malawi has to sell 90kg of rice to give him enough of
a sustainable income to run his farm, feed and clothe his family and enable him
to provide education for his children.
The 90kg Rice Challenge is a teaching tool to demonstrate:
- the benefits of buying fair trade products here and how it positively impacts the lives of the producers in the developing world,
- how pupils can be global citizens by helping those in some of the poorest communities in the world gain an education and therefore provide a brighter future for their peers in Malawi,
- sustainability by providing a consistent market in the UK and thereby helping the rice farmers to work their way out of poverty with dignity and creating food security,
- social enterprise
by allowing the pupils to
run a business and come up with innovative and creative ways to sell the 90 x
1kg bags of Kilombero rice from Malawi
The Challenge costs £288 (£3.20 per 1kg bag of rice) and the idea is that having completed the lessons, the pupils will sell the rice on to family members or in the community in order to cover the costs, but some schools prefer to cook with it, host curry nights, bake offs, or do a Dragon’s Den scenario etc.
To take part in the Challenge:
· call us on 0141 255 0901
· email nicola@jts.co.uk
· order online at shop.jts.co.uk (upfront payment required for online orders)
· visit us at the Scottish Learning Festival on Stand H37
After six years of leadership, Mary Popple has retired from her role as Chair of the True Origin Board to assume the role as an ordinary board member. She leaves a legacy of steadfast, values-led leadership, resilience and commitment to Fair Trade during a period of significant transition for the social enterprise. First appointed to the True Origin Board in 2013, Mary became the first woman to take on the role of Chair in April 2019. Her journey into the position was shaped by a successful career in the IT industry and a passion for Fair Trade. Mary was an active member of the influential St Andrews Fair Trade group which successfully campaigned to designate the town as a Fairtrade area, and for The Open Golf championship to become the first UK sports tournament to commit to using Fairtrade products. This was complemented with over twenty years’ experience of involvement in other trade justice and development opportunities for women. During her six-year tenure as Chair of the True Origin board, Mary strategically led the social enterprise through a challenging external environment at a challenging time for many small businesses. Less than a year into her new role, the Covid pandemic emerged, causing significant uncertainty for staff, producers and customers as well as disruption in global supply chains. The war in Ukraine and cost-of-living crisis soon followed. Despite the challenges, under Mary’s leadership, True Origin generated over £2.3million in sales income that included £733,000 worth of Kilombero rice from Malawi. That’s equivalent to 245 tonnes or nearly 5 million servings of rice! The sale of the rice provides families in Malawi, one of the least developed countries in the world, with sustainable incomes and better food security. Mary played an instrumental role in rolling out the social enterprise’s rebrand and positioning the organisation as the go-to place for fair and fine products under the new True Origin banner. The product range subsequently increased during her tenure, solidifying True Origin’s reputation in the fine foods market. New products included a range of condiments such the soon-to-become both a customer favourite and one of Mary’s favourite products, sun-dried fig balsamic reduction as well as the popular beer bread of which over 150,000 packets were sold during her term. Mary’s leadership as Chair will also be remembered for her values-led approach, guiding the organisation to decisions with its founding fair trade principles in mind and the interests of producers always at the forefront. She invested time in expanding the board’s skillset and further developing the organisation’s robust governance procedures, upholding True Origin’s commitment to transparency with its stakeholders and leaving the organisation in a strong position to tackle future challenges. She also brought an instinctive knowledge of Fair Trade customers in Scotland and beyond to the role.
Our former Operations Manager and now volunteer, Liam McLaughlin caught up with Kenneth Mwakasungula on the challenges of being a Kilombero Rice farmer
R eflections on the recent visit of Howard Msukwa, Rice Farmer from Kaporo Smallholder Farmer Association (KASFA)
Jade and Nicola visit some of the Woman Farmer Foundation farmers to learn more about their crops and farming techniques and some of the challenges they face.
Nicola and Jade visit Eswatini Kitchen and the Woman Farmer Foundation.