Right price for bananas
Posted: 02 Nov 2006 @ 00:00
WHEN the fairtrade team at Polesworth Abbey in Birmingham
diocese found a local supermarket selling fairtrade bananas at 40p per 1lb over
the odds just because they were fairtrade, they were outraged. "I will never
shop there again," says the Vicar, the Revd Philip Wells (left). Their reaction
was to mount a big campaign about bananas, just as they do about the whole
range of fairtrade products.
"We have two intrepid campaigners," Mr Wells tells me. "They are terribly
committed. They set up their stall at all church events and at everything in
the village. They have been getting all the other local churches to do the
same."
The upshot is that Catherine Davies (holding banana) and Ruth Beale (right)
sold more than £6000 worth of fairtrade food products, sweets, cards, clothes,
and books last year, and hope to do even better this year. During Fairtrade
Fortnight, the abbey is concentrating on raising money for its linked parish,
Mpondas in Malawi. "We are now working at becoming a fairtrade village," says
Mr Wells.