Koolskools would like to wish all of its supporters all the very best for a successful, fair trading 2015!
Our project has gone from strength to strength over the past year, and we are delighted that our Fairtrade cotton farmers and ethical factory workers are also benefiting from increasing overseas Koolskools sales. One of our new overseas markets for 2014 was Canada. Thanks to pro-active support from Fairtrade Canada, we were able to engage with the Manitoba Council for International Development (MCIC).
The MCIC kindly purchased Fairtrade cotton/organic T-shirts from us at the end of last year. One of MCIC’s mandates is to foster global citizenship among Manitoba youth through classroom workshops, school conferences, and teacher resources. The T-shirts will be used for their “Generating Momentum for Our World: Justice in a Changing Climate” middle years conference series. They will host five conferences throughout the province in 2015 where students in grades 5-9 will learn about this year’s theme: how climate change is impacting social justice. After students are informed on the issue, they will have time to learn a new creative skill to help them share what they’ve learned with others. One of those skills will be silk-screening – a process where students will design and print their own message onto a T-shirt. Since their organizational vision is oriented towards global justice, it is extremely important to the MCIC that the T-shirts their youth use in their session are Fairtrade certified.
Koolskools wishes the MCIC all the very best for a successful programme of conferences, and we look forward to seeing some of the results of this year’s students’ silk-screening, which we shall hope to show in another blog on the MCIC’s activities later this year!