Fairtrade Quiz

- PLAY THE FAIRTRADE QUIZ!

Fairtrade Cricket Clinics initiative Launched in London

The first of a series of Fairtrade Cricket clinics was launched last week (June 30th) at the Southgate-Adelaide Cricket Club, Enfield, London , where 25 children were present plus coaches and parents.

A private Fairtrade Company, AFRICA REACT UK, based in Enfield, London, has gone ahead with a unique initiative to provide children with an innovative combination of Fairtrade education and sport clinics. Teaming up with the Enfield Fairtrade Campaign and Southgate-Adelaide Cricket Club, three separate clinics, culminating in a day of Festival games are being offered to different age groups which promises to be an exciting experience……….

Fairtrade Sports Balls Q & A

The Fairtrade Organisation has provided us with their own documented Q&A's for their work in certifying the Fairtrade status of all the Fairtrade sports balls.

Although the Fairtrade Organisation certifies the Fairtrade balls it does not currently actively promote Fairtrade within sport or offer Fairtrade status to sports clubs. Hopefully the success of this project and Blogsplot can convince them to include sport in their long term strategy for the future.

Read the FAQ's .............

Funrunopoly - The Results

The game of Funrunopoly was held in central London on Saturday 28th June, blessed by beautiful sunshine.

7 Teams of smiling energetic participants gained public participation to roll giant dice (kindly donated by www.bakerross.co.uk) to determine their route around the monopoly board locations of London.
At each location the teams completed tasks, riddles and questions relating to the street, its history and business inhabitants.
A previously obtained street collection license also allowed us to collect donations throughout the day and raise awareness about VSO and their work within international development. Although the streets were thriving with people this proved to be one of the most challenging aspects to the day, with typically a small percentage giving us the time of day. However those people that were happy to speak and occasionally donate took great interest in VSO and my project overseas and that made it all worth while.......

Grassroots, Football Legends!

My friend Terry and I attended the Football Grassroots Live 08 exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham on Saturday, and took along some Fairtrade balls. It was a great opportunity to talk to industry professionals, coaches, premier league club representatives, players, salesmen and community projects.

The day was a huge success. Foremost it provided the chance to promote Fairtrade in the sport of football, educate and inform a wide variety of people in the industry about Fairtrade and that it is an important issue within Football.........

LTFSG - Luton Carnival washout

Preperations had been made to attend the Luton Carnical on Bank Holiday Monday (May 26th) with the Luton Fairtrade Steering Group. Resouce packs had been created, an interactive quiz was designed, Fairtrade Foundation laflets and infaltable Fairtrade Bananas had been sourced. Unfortunatly the weather was not kind and heavy rain put end to the plans. This event would have been a perfect opportunity to promote the steering groups work and netowrk with the local community to start taking serious steps towards making Luton a Fairtrade town. The group will now re-gather and plan for future events.

Dunstable Friends Group – Fair Play

The Dunstable friends group previous announcement to purchase Fairtrade balls through Blogsplot was greatly appreciated to help kick off the Fairtrade sports balls campaign.
The group seen here, meet and play every Monday night and celebrated their purchase with a match on Monday 19th May. As Paul Blackler handed over the sports balls there was great appreciation for the quality of the balls which meet International Matchball Standard (IMS) and exceeded expectations……

Fair Trade is now on Google Earth!

Have you ever asked, 'where on Earth does my Fair Trade Certified coffee come from'? Now you can find out on Google Earth! TransFair USA have collaborated with Google to bring you this exciting new way to learn about Fair Trade. Navigate the globe using the new Fair Trade layer to discover Fair Trade Certified farms in Latin America, Africa, and Asia

Viewing Fair Trade farm profiles is easy, follow these simple steps....

Fairtrade Football - New Zealand

Blogsplot has been in contact with a variety of international organisations and community groups in various countries across the world. One country with particular success with Fairtrade footballs is New Zealand.

Dave Butler-Peck's work with Trade Aid in Dunedin has begun importing Fair Trade Sports Ball into New Zealand within the past year. Dave is now well known in the NZ Fairtrade community for he has been distributing Fair Trade footballs and has been involved in a variety of Fairtrade community events. His local club in Dunedin has made a commitment and has started using the Footballs during matches as he looks to get a wider commitment from other clubs too......

Gensis Football Club - Fairtrade commited

Genesis FC is one of the first teams in the country to make full commitments towards Fairtrade. With a little support from their local council they were able to purchase and play with fairtrade footballs and play in a fairtrade kit.

The manager of Genesis F.C. was challenged when hearing about some of the working conditions of football stitchers. "I have been stitching footballs for as long as I remember," confided a young girl from Jalandhar, aged between 10-12 years. "My hands are constantly in pain. It feels like they are burning. There is nothing I can do I have to help my older sister complete the order."

Funrunopoly - Saturday 28th June!

Blogsplot is running its first charity event to raise funds to support VSO.

Funrunopoly will see several teams made up of 2 to 4 people dressed as monopoly pieces to gain public participation to roll a giant dice to determine their route around the monopoly board. Each team will then separate on a funrun style race around London attempting to reach the most destinations, in the order that the dice decides. At each location the team will be given a set of tasks to complete. Some standard such as a team photo with the street sign. Some unique to the location, such as find and photo a famous statue. Community Chest and Chance cards will be used. Profit and finds from the cards and from the tasks will be added to or deducted from the amount of donations raised to give you a game total.

As public participation is key to the game, raising awareness of VSO and blgosplot will be achieved whilst hopefully gaining donations along the way ............

Olympic games – An unfair Game

International Sports brands are coming under increasing pressure from campaigners who are leading the fight for fairer trade internationally as it is recognised again and again that little is being done to address the global problems of exploitation.
The Beijing Olympics is just around the corner yet little to no progress has been made since the last Olympic games in Athens. The Chinese government has been questioned for its lack of commitment to human rights, where improvements and change was originally promised at the heart of their bid to be hosts. Questions too have to be asked of the Olympic committee for their lack of progress in adopting and communicating progress and enforcing legal practice.

Play Fair 2008

Play Fair 2008 is an organisation that campaigns for the belief that sportswear and athletic footwear companies, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), National Olympics Committees, as well as national governments must take steps to eliminate the exploitation and abuse of workers in the global sporting goods industry.

They have reported directly from the countries that produce sportswear used all over the world, giving the unfairly treated a voice and highlighting the lack of action taken by leading sports companies internationally. Play Fair 2008 currently takes great interest in the Olympic Games and the lack of improvement made since the previous Olympics in Athens.

Fairtrade Universities



Since 2003 the UK has seen almost 60 Universities gain Fairtrade status, proudly leading the campaign for fairer international trade from the heart of our educational centres. Oxford Brookes was the first university to make the Fairtrade commitments in 2003, between 2003 and 2006 the numbers roughly doubled each year from a 10 by 2004 to 22 by 2005 and 40 by 2006.
Blogsplot begins to take a look at some of these stories in more detail to see what exactly is being done......

Twickenham schools commitment to Fairer Trade

Sarah Clarke teacher at St. Stephen's Junior School, Twickenham, tells Blogsplot of her schools efforts with Fair trade projects and education of the subject in the classroom. Through using JustChange Tea the school has been able to bring Fairtrade into the classroom .....

Just Change - Revolutionary Nilgiri Tea

Blogsplot’s development with fair trade takes a look beyond the Fairtrade label as it begins to discover a whole variety of other projects that work for fairer trade in general. Blogsplots connection with the Luton Town Fairtrade steering group has seen it work with a hugely successful project called JustChange.

Just Change is a new way of trading that aims to go one step further than the Fiartrade Label by directly linking communities in India and the UK, cutting out the middle man and controlling the rewards fairly.....

Fairtrade Football Tournament / Match Rules

Play Blogsplot's Fairtrade Football rules for a match or a cup competition and introduce Fairtrade in a unique and entertaining way. Suitable for all ages.

The idea of this game is to introduce the concept of fairness into sport, and challenge the idea of what is and what is not fair. This is achieved through applying a set of interesting rules so that each team feels the frustration of unfairness first hand so that it can help relate to unfair trade.

Fairtrade Wales

Fairtrade Wales has got in touch with blogsplot to tell their Fairtrade story.

Fairtrade Wales actively encourages schools to purchase Fairtrade Footballs and Rugby Balls wherever possible. This is achieved through publishing a schools Action Guide, which encourages schools to switch to Fairtrade products from food to sports balls (page 26, 27 and 28).

They also organise an inter-schools Fairtrade football competition that has been run in Cardiff for the past 3 years .....

Dunstable Friends Group buy in bulk


Dunstable Queensbury and Northfields ex students have got together to purchase their summer sports balls.

The group lead by graphical designer Ryan Creamer will be purchasing 25 balls between them in order to benefit from Blogsplots Bulk Discount.

The Story of Footballs



Millions of people throughout the world do not earn enough money to live on, with 20% of the world’s population still living on less than $1 a day. Unfair world trade rules mean that in some parts of the world, even those who work for twelve or more hours a day still can’t afford the basics they need, let alone education and health care.

Most of the footballs we buy are produced in one town called Sialkot, a small town in the Punjab in Pakistan, where thousands of children work in the football production industry and are hand-stitched by people who get paid as little as 30 p per day. More than 40 million are made here every year for countries all over the world. Traditionally this was low paid work with popular brands benefiting from cheap unregulated labor. This has begun to change with Fairtrade footballs.......