Volunteering with JTS - Week 2

By Saturday, my good luck with weather seemed to end. It was wet and dreary, but that didn't stop me and my hosts from traipsing through the rain to go and see the Kelpies (in short bursts between warming up at the cafe and shop.) They were really a sight to behold. Unfortunately, the tours to look inside where all booked, but there is nothing wrong with sitting in a heated room with a mug of hot chocolate looking at the horse heads from a distance. My 9-year-old host and I then had some fun trying to get the 10,000-step goal her new Fitbit had given her. Lots of running, jumping and skipping - 9-year-olds have an endless supply of energy!

We also had a look at the technological marvel that is the Falkirk wheel. Reading about it, I was pretty interested to see it in action, unfortunately, when we got there, it was closed; the wheel stationary and canal drained.

On Sunday, we had more than a dozen people over and we made a truly enormous amount of sausage hotpot. Unfortunately, the guests also bought 2 lasagnes, salad and desserts (we over-catered just slightly!). It's a good thing that I like the hotpot because I think we will be eating it for the next month.

For Christmas, Tracy's daughter received a game called banagrams (basically everybody competes to do their own scrabble games the fastest). We have been playing it almost every night, slowly getting faster and faster. The other night, we watched countdown and I've got to tell you - we owned it!

At JTS I seem to have a finger in every pie. I've been continuing my work with our mail campaign, now being promoted from letter stuffer to label sticker-oner. I swear there are an unlimited amount of these infernal things!

I have been leaning how to do some basic dispatch in the warehouse and been doing a marketing spend review. I finally completed my spreadsheet of all the school email addresses in Wales on Tuesday - much celebration was had. I am in the process of writing some articles about schools who have completed the 90kg challenge and our company's and producer's WFTO status.

I have been sinking my teeth into a project about our Malawi producers. I have been researching and compiling information about the farmers and their families. It has been good to see the direct impact we are making on their lives, but quite tough as well. When you can put a face and a name to the farmers, their situation really hits home. On the other hand, when you learn about the good we are doing it is all the more poignant. Learning about Violet, the orphan that we helped to go to nursing school comes to mind.

I have also had the truly rough job of working with my 9-year-old host to trial some Fairtrade recipes and taste test others (the orange and chocolate cake with fudge icing was a big hit.) We've got recipes for a white chocolate and cranberry biscuit slice that I’m super excited to try.

I had some good news the other day - somebody had bought one of my mystery bags - yay! You see, I’m not just a pretty face, I am now a full-blown entrepreneur ;) hahaha

On Wednesday, I went to the first meeting of the Scottish Fair Trade Youth Network. The aim of the network is to empower 16-25 year olds with the skills knowledge and resources to create and contribute towards Fair Trade campaigning in Scotland. Our first meeting was in the One World Shop in Edinburgh, so I got see a bit of the city (it was absolutely freezing, but quite pretty. Edinburgh castle was nicely lit up. I would like to be able to spend some more time around there.

At the meeting, we talked about some of the biggest problems facing Fair Trade today - taking an in depth look at the cocoa, cotton and fashion industries.

In Cote d'Ivoire, the world largest cocoa producer, only 6% of cocoa is sold Fairtrade. In the last year, the farmers' incomes have decreased by 30-40% due to a catastrophic drop in the market cocoa price.
The cotton and fashion industries are fraught with danger - child labour, large pesticide use, and unsafe factories endanger the workers, the water intensive cotton crop strains political friendships and the environmental impacts of unsustainable farming can be devastating.
In India over 400,000 child workers have been reported as being used in cotton farms. In Bangladesh, more than 1,000 workers died when Rana Plaza collapsed in 2013 - even after significant improvements, over 50% of garment factories still lack adequate fire alarm systems.
The river feeding the Aral Sea (one of the largest inland lakes) was diverted to irrigate cotton crops. This lead to the near extinction of a breed of wild horses in the area, political tension emerged between the neighbouring Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and giant dust storms from the dry sea bed have caused wide spread lung problems.
Cotton farmers are also in danger because the cotton market is in decline as polyester takes over, there are government subsidies for cotton farmers in MEDCs, and GM cotton crops leave farmers indebted to Multinational Corporations.

We also had a talk in the meeting about campaigning tactics. We brainstormed ways that we could increase public awareness of the problems still in the world today. We debated the benefits of 'brandalism' and 'craftivism', we talked about how we could use social media to revitalise Fair Trade in our age range and we discussed how we could increase accountability and transparency in companies using phone apps.

All in all, it was a very productive night and I am looking forward to meeting everyone again. It was great to meet a like-minded group of people my age who all shared the same passion for social justice.

There were apparently severe weather warning all this week for Friday with schools threatening to shut, but I walk up this morning to a beautiful still (absolutely perishingly cold) day. I was kind of looking forward to some snow- it's great fun for the first hour before you have to do something, and you remember how annoying it is... But I guess if I'm here for a few more weeks, it will probably happen sooner or later.

I've been busy most of today with helping to organise JTS' birthday celebration. They are turning 10 in March and we have some fun stuff planned so stay tuned.

I hope you enjoyed reading.

Have a good day!