Over Fairtrade Fortnight this year, students from all years participated in raising awareness for Fairtrade - and some money! Over both sites, chocolate selling took place, with the Imberhorne Fairtrade Group selling Fairtrade certified chocolate and cookies. Someone from every year helped by buying some! This has become a tradition at Imberhorne, with the chocolate selling scheme now in its 6th year. We are pleased to announce that the scheme this year  raised £258.75 for our cause.

The Group also gave assemblies to all year groups. They spoke about this year’s theme – Big Fairtrade Breakfasts – and the concept of food security. They gave some fantastic examples of real people whose lives have been changed by Fairtrade. All comments about the assemblies were very positive – and many teachers pointed out how good it was to see student led assemblies,  delivered by student members of the Group.

The Steering Group went out into the wider community to visit local primary schools in Lingfield and Dormansland over the fortnight to run workshops with Y5 classes. In these, the students investigated a mystery, to figure out how Fairtrade had helped a Kenyan tea farmer with environmental changes. They were then served a Big Fairtrade Breakfast including jam sandwiches, snack bars, juice and muesli. The Fairtrade team then visited the 6th EG Beavers, where they taught them about what it means to be a Fairtrade banana, and they were also served Fairtrade breakfasts as well!

The main event of the Fortnight was the Fairtrade Day at Lower School. Y8 had been tasked to deliver two or three ‘unfair’ game stalls per form, to set-up and play during the lunchtime of the 11th March. The stalls were a great success, all 10 forms were represented, and the event was bigger and better than last year! Congratulations must go to 8Y, who raised a whopping £50.50, more than any other formThe Y9’s participated in an “Unfair Dodgeball Match” against the teachers – which got very competitive! Students paid £1 to play a match of Dodgeball, and the crowd watching seemed to enjoy the entertainment a lot! Town Mayor, Cllr Dick Sweatman, attended the event for the second year running, and commented on how well it was run and how it was good to see students so enthusiastic.

On Thursday 17th March, an outside organisation called Koolskools (who supply Fairtrade school uniforms) visited Imberhorne to run workshops with KS3 students and to present to the Governing Body. They particularly focused on human rights – and how many ‘sweatshops’ in the Developing World put workers in appalling conditions. One such worker was Pamela Intelligent, a seamstress from Mauritius, who accompanied Koolskools in the workshops. She had been exploited from the age of 14 in a ‘sweatshop’ but now works making Fairtrade uniforms for Koolskools. Everyone was touched and enlightened by her story.

Overall, Fairtrade Fortnight 2016 was bigger and better than last year, and raised much more money! In total, we managed to raise £476.68 over the two weeks, which will all be going to our investment scheme with “Lend with Care”, an organisation providing microloans to producers and entrepreneurs in the developing world, who will be chosen by the students.