Henry came to the Saints following an arduous two-week “Fairtrade speaker tour”, a regular phenomenon organised by the Fairtrade Foundation where representatives of Fairtrade Co-operatives and Associations from around the developing world visit the UK and offer inspiring talks on the benefits that Fairtrade has brought to their businesses and communities. Henry was no exception, and so it was a great privilege for Koolskools to be able to welcome Henry to Southampton and to introduce him to some of the students and teachers in the schools (Cantell, Knightwood and Ringwood) that Koolskools supplies its Fairtrade cotton school uniform to.

A student, wearing Koolskools Fairtrade cotton, presents Henry with the new strip.

The Kasinthula Community also has a football team, so Koolskools agreed with the Fairtrade Foundation that it would be fitting to mark Henry’s visit by presenting him with a brand new soccer strip for the team.  The name of the team is Chinangwa FC. When, through the Fairtrade Foundation, we began the dialogue with Henry and the Kasinthula community, we realised that Chinangwa FC did not have a team logo either. So our fantastic Koolskools design company, Catchy Monkey, donned their thinking caps, armed with the knowledge that near to the Kasinthula Community is the Shire River and a national park, that is the northernmost habitat in the world for the nyala, a type of African antelope. They produced a super new logo for Chinangwa FC, which you can see on the first photo we have just received of the team wearing their new shirts below:

Henry was very kind in sending us a note shortly after the strips had been received, as follows:

“Hi Andy,

I just need to let you know that Chinangwa people and players are complementing for good jersey you gave me with students at Southampton stadium.

And let all students know this as well and if anyone has a question to ask feel free give my e-mail ok?

Regards to you and all students,

Henry(Malawi).”

Chinangwa FC with their new strip

So, a great day was had by all. In the next blog we shall share with you

some of the feedback we received from the students who participated in the day.”

The Awards were presented by entrepreneur and chef, Levi Roots, who as can be seen from the photo below has a little more hair than Mike and Andy do! Levi is also a Fairtrade Ambassador. The Awards ceremony took place at the Colston Hall in Bristol and was attended by 160 business leaders in the region. Levi has recently visited Fairtrade cocoa farmers in Ghana and told the audience how inspired he was by the difference Fairtrade makes to communities.

The ceremony was opened by the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, and the event presented a unique and valuable opportunity to network with like minded, Fairtrade orientated businesses. The aim of the Awards is to increase sales of, and support for, Fairtrade amongst businesses in the South West region, by promoting those businesses that support Fairtrade and encouraging others to do more.

46 businesses across the region achieved bronze, silver and gold Awards, and Koolskools were delighted to have participated in such a high profile Fairtrade occasion.

Look out for our next blog on a fantastic Koolskools event involving a Fairtrade sugar producer, a group of Southampton school children and an exciting morning at Southampton Football Club courtesy of the Saints FC Foundation!

What better way to kick off our Autumn blogging campaign than to tell all our friends and supporters about another very rewarding and enjoyable Koolskools day “on the road” on 21 September, this time to Brighton.

We had a fantastic day meeting and speaking to 18 primary and secondary schools from across the city – students accompanied by their teachers – who were gathered at the Brighton & Hove BHee Eco-Schools conference.

This well organised and truly inspirational event took place over a full school day at Patcham High School. It was organised in partnership with the participating schools by “resourcefutures”, a dedicated consultancy offering all round expertise in waste management and resource conservation. Resourcefutures work with schools through local authority contracts.

Participating schools, who all had ECO Schools Committees, revelled in the opportunity tell each other about their work on the ECO front. Patcham High was literally buzzing with new ideas and the sharing of new experiences. The event marked the end of the first year of a three-year programme of Environmental Education, run for Brighton & Hove Council by Resource Futures in partnership with Sussex Wildlife Trust.

The day’s proceedings were expertly guided and encouraged by the teachers and adult supporters, and we were delighted to see that the staff and supporters also participated in the work-shops with their respective groups of students. Koolskools ran two workshops on Fairtrade and Fairtrade cotton during the day, one for the junior schools and one for the secondary schools. For the former, we had the pleasure of welcoming staff and students from Carlton Hill and St Margarets. The two secondary schools participating in the morning session were Dorothy Stringer and Varndean. Surrounding this blog are the winning entries from St Margarets and Carlton Hill to the “Draw some Fairtrade products” competition that we ran during the junior school workshop. Congratulations to Robin, Anna and Chloe, the 3 winners!!

Andy and Mike

Another day of Koolskools presentations was spent at Ratton School in Eastbourne, East Sussex, at the beginning of June. We always try to innovate and ring the changes with our school presentations. On this occasion we ran a Fairtrade multiple choice quiz through the course of the 5 x 1-hour Ratton geography classes and you can read some of the answers to our mini-essay questions below this blog. Such inspiring answers from the students who we hope will be wearing our Fairtrade cotton garments inspires us to keep plugging away and try to bring more schools into the Fairtrade school family.

 “Our school can benefit from Koolskools by buying their FT cotton polos for school uniform and knowing that the workers will get more fair pay and commit less suicides also less malnourished children. There will be a fair price for the consumers which is a win win situation for everyone. Also people in Africa will have more education….” (Harry Nixon)

“American cotton gets subsidised by the American Government so other farmers can’t sell theirs off because it makes an unfair trading market” (Ross Winters)

“If we bought a Fairtrade polo shirt it would benefit everyone involved in the production of the shirt. The workers who harvest the cotton and who work in the factories will get a fair amount of money and could also benefit their community. The money could be re-invested into the village with the social premium this could fund schools and equipment.” (Barny Nash)

“Buying a Fairtrade cotton polo is not good, it’s great. It may not seem like it but it helps them build or improve places like a school, chemist or even just a simple water pump. Money is a lot to them. It means buying crops (seeds) for next year and just eating. It will really make a difference.” (Jasmine Benfell)

“It will help the producers of the cotton earn money so they can buy more cotton seeds each year in the market. So if we buy a Fairtrade cotton polo shirt we will be giving money to the LEDC countries and towns so that in their communities they can also decide what they want to buy with that money eg medicine, food, water wells, equipment, schools etc.” (Lily Potter)

“Thank you so much for coming you have showed me just how lucky I am” (Maddie White)  

“I think Koolskools is a very nice organisation and thank you to them thank you!”  (Alex Seguin)

 Apologies to our regular blog readers for the recent radio silence! We have been very busy visiting schools, and participating in some exciting and enjoyable school-orientated events, one of which I am going to tell you  about in this blog- the E.Y.E. ECO Summit at Worthing High School on 8 may. Then we promise to resurrect more regular blogging as the summer unfolds, because we have more interesting school visits to tell you about, plus of course the recently launched Fairtrade Foundation’s Fairtrade Cotton for School Uniforms summer campaign. 

So we hit the A27 early morning from Southampton on 8 May to attend the E.Y.E ECO Summit at Worthing High School. We were very grateful to Polly Wise of Thomas A Becket School, our friends at the Littlehampton Academy and Karen Hayler at Worthing High for inviting us along and allowing us to conduct 3 great workshops with the school participants on the day.

The E.Y.E. Project (Eco, Young and Engaged) was set up in 2008 by Tim Loughton, the local M.P. His wish was to get local schools in his constituency together on a regular basis to focus on environmental/sustainability matters. There is no political sway to the event or the E.Y.E. Project.

The EYE ECO Summit Committee organises the annual Eco-Summit on Tim’s behalf these days, because of his busy Parliamentary commitments. That said, Tim attended the whole day’s activities on 8 May, so he is obviously not taking his foot off the ECO Summit gas!

Over the years they have built up a network of 26 schools across Worthing and Adur, Primary and Secondary ages – Year 3 upwards. The Eco-Summit started with an opening assembly where schools briefly feedback the ‘green’ work that they have done over the last 12 months. There followed a couple of short speeches from local diginitaries.

The children then took part in a variety of workshops which cover a broad selection of environmental/sustainability areas. That’s where Koolskools came into it. We ran 3 very invigorating and lively Fairtrade cotton/ethical trading workshops, during the first one of which we actually linked up live with our factory in Mauritius via skype so that the students could learn a bit about the practice of working with Fairtrade cotton  from the horse’s mouth, so to speak! Around the text of this blog you can see some of the students’ drawings of what they see when they think of Fairtrade.

A great effort by the organising Committee, and a special mention of Polly Wise who put life, soul and more into the organisation of the event, and deserves a medal!

More next week on our inspirational visit to Ratton School in Eastbourne!

Andy and Mike

Under the inspirational leadership of Fiona Leishman, Craighead’s Head Teacher, the school decided to change their entire uniform to Koolskools 50% Fairtrade cotton/50% polyester school logo-embroidered polos and sweatshirts. The first batch of several hundred garments arrived in late March 2012 and we are pleased to say that the parents and students were delighted with the results; so much so that the school sold out of most sizes during their first sales evenings for parents and a major follow-on order has already winged its way back to our factory in Mauritius!

Speaking to Koolskools shortly after the first sales evenings of Koolskools Fairtrade cotton garments Fiona told us: “…. the parents loved the quality and bought loads last week – it was very busy at times!…”

Koolskools are very pleased that this new way of working with schools on Fairtrade cotton is working well, to the benefit of the students (who also have the benefit of Koolskools free Fairtrade cotton educational presentations) and parents in their client schools, not to mention the significant benefits going to the small holder farmers and their communities in developing countries and the workers in the Koolskools factories.

If any Scottish schools are interested in hearing more about how things worked at Craighead, including an independent perspective on the quality and price of the garments themselves, we are very grateful that Fiona Leishman and her colleagues have offered to become a reference point for Koolskools in Scotland on telephone number: 0141-955-2271.

We look forward to cementing our relations with Scottish schools in the coming months and years, so please call us now on 02380-283223 or e-mail us on andy@koolskools.co.uk and we can embark on our unique Fairtrade cotton journey with you.

Click here to read “The Daily What News” local news report on Craighead’s Fairtrade activities.