How to make trade fairer

Buying tea, coffee, chocolate and fruit sold under the Fairtrade banner is a small but effective step, writes Louise Holden.

There's nothing like the anger you feel when you realise that a lot of Third World poverty is created by First World bureaucracy. When the students of Presentation Secondary School in Waterford discovered the unfairness of world trade practices, as part of an action project in Junior Cert, they decided to use transition year to push fair trade.

Mounting exasperation at governments' inaction was the fuel; they turned next for information to feed the fire. "We went to the One World Centre in Waterford to get as much information as we could about fair trade," says student Laura O'Neill. "When we realised that we could actually become a Fairtrade school" - promoting the increasingly available Fairtrade brand, whose supporters include the likes of Chris Martin, of Coldplay - "we decided to work on that as part of our entry for the Young Social Innovators award."

The six students in the group spent the next few weeks putting their new knowledge of global economics into a form that their peers would find palatable. Before getting into subsidies and tariffs they started with simple equations. "If you buy a regular banana, the farmer in South America who grew it will get 1c," says Jennifer Butler. "If you buy a Fairtrade banana he'll get 2.5c. A 150 per cent jump in profit is a big deal to a family who are barely scraping by, with not enough money for basics such as healthcare and education."

Buying Fairtrade tea, coffee, chocolate and fruit won't solve all the poverty issues of the developing world, but it's a simple practical measure that has an immediate effect for growers. It also sends a message to multinational corporations and governments that consumers are unwilling to accept the status quo, according to Laura O'Neill.

"Third World countries don't get a voice in global economics," she says. "The World Trade Organisation holds meetings in Geneva, and many developing countries can't send representatives. In Europe, farmers are well represented. They get help in the form of subsidies from the EU, which makes it almost impossible for poor nations to compete."

The students took a number of measures to spread the word about Fairtrade in their community. They held a debate with first years on world trade and ran a poster competition on the subject, so they would have plenty of visual material to support their campaign.

After educating fellow students, including transition-year students in six other Waterford schools, they set about making their school Fairtrade. This involved educating everybody at Presentation Secondary, from first years to staff, on the issues involved, buying Fairtrade products for the staffroom and asking local businesses to stock Fairtrade products.

Now that Presentation Secondary is officially a Fairtrade school, the students have set their sights on bigger goals. They want to make Waterford Ireland's first Fairtrade city.

In 2003 Clonakilty became Ireland's first Fairtrade town, and 30 groups around Ireland hope to follow its example. If the students of Presentation Waterford can meet their objective they will make history - and send a powerful message to governments across the world, including our own, that the era of First World dominance of global wealth has got to end.

Presentation Secondary has a record of social action. Its students have been taking part in the Young Social Innovators programme since it began, and nine groups are entering projects this year. "The Young Social Innovators award is just the beginning for this project," says Jennifer Butler. "We will continue to educate younger students so that our school remains a Fairtrade school after we leave. We are still talking to local businesses, to make sure that a wide variety of Fairtrade products are available locally. Hopefully, we will make Waterford a Fairtrade city before our time at Pres Waterford is out."

Are the students daunted by the scale of their task? "Not at all," says Jennifer Butler. "Our work on this project has taught us that local action makes a real difference, especially when governments are slow to move. If we spread the word, and grab plenty of attention from our peers and the media, we can bring about change from the bottom up. I really believe that's possible."

For more information on becoming a Fairtrade school, visit www.fairtrade.ie or contact Fairtrade Mark Ireland, Carmichael House, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7, 01-4753515, info@ fairtrade.ie; for more about Young Social Innovators, see the supplement with today's Irish TimesIf you want to get involved with the Fairtrade movement, why not get its seal of approval? You need to:

Get information from your local Fairtrade centre

Set up a stall in your school during Fairtrade Fortnight in April, or any other time, giving students and staff the chance to sample Fairtrade products and learn more

Devise ways to educate other students in the school on the basics of global economics and the issues driving Fairtrade

Talk to staff at the school about switching to Fairtrade products such as coffee, tea, fruit, sugar and chocolate

Let local retailers and suppliers know you are becoming a Fairtrade school and ask them to stock suitable products.