Category Archives: Fairtrade Schools

Fairtrade Ideas for Schools in Fairtrade Fortnight – Newsletter

We have decided to post copies of our newsletters which we email out to our supporters. This one was designed to let our customers know about some our our new supplies which we hope they might be interested in.

We love supporting Fairtrade and our range is ever increasing.

The newsletter includes Fairtrade and organic T Shirts, Tea Towels, Tote Bags – all plain ready for printing with fabric pencils or pens by school children.  If we are sent photographs of any final results we will create a gallery on our blog of the resulting designs.  Maybe rustle up a Fairtrade prize or two!

Our new supplies with Fairtrade Fortnight in Mind
Our new supplies with Fairtrade Fortnight in Mind

Fair Trade Organic Certified Hoodies for Schools and Students

Our shipment of Fair trade organic hoodies for students arrived a few weeks ago. Hurray!

All made especially for us in India.

Fair trade & Organic Cotton Spun for our Fair Trade Hoodies
Cotton Ready spun for Our Fair Trade Hoodies

 

It has been exciting, impatiently waiting for them to arrive. Now the warehouse is filled to the brim with boxes full of them. We have royal blue, red, navy and black. We thought students would be interested in them as these young people seem to be particularly socially aware, committed to Fair Trade, and want to take action.
We thought the interest would come from students at college or university.
But after only a few weeks of the hoodies being delivered we have had lots of interest from schools. They pupils want to wear Fair trade garments for school trips and special events. We embroider or print logos or designs created by pupils onto them. I have enjoyed talking directly with six formers who have been a pleasure to collaborate with. It is these young people who are taking responsibility for placing and looking after orders for their groups and teams.

In a nutshell early days yet but it looks like we have a Fair Trade garment that is going to be popular – which means that we can we can order more, help create fairer working conditions in the garment industry in India.

www.cottonroots.co.uk 01908 290482

We supplied a School with Fairtrade Polo Shirts in Costa Rica!

We were excited again here at bonny Cotton Roots.  This has to be the customer who lives the furthest away from us.

The Centro Billingue Waldof in Costa Rica placed an order with us for yellow Fairtrade certified polo shirts for the pupils of the school.  We embroidered them with their logo……….. here it is –

The logo embroidered onto Fairtrade cotton polo shirt fabric

It odes make us very proud to be selected.  I am an admirer of Rudolf Steiner and think I would have loved to have been taught at a Waldorf school myself when I was a child.

The gallery at the school website is really special.  Take a look please!  here is a link  Centro Billingue Waldorf.  You can also find out about the philosophy of Steiner.  Thank you Veronica for asking us to supply you.

We are talking to a UK school based on the same principles so are hopeful of working with them too.  It’s a bit hush hush at the moment. Shhhhh

My dream of course to work in some way, one day, with the school based at the Findhorn Foundation.  That would be a circle. Ahhh

New Online Ordering for School Customers

At the end of last year we introduced a new service so that parents can order school uniform for their children online.

I have been very pleased at how popular this is with our school customers.  The have usually taken the option of offering the opportunity for parents to place their orders on line, we then embroider the garments, pack them fro each child and then deliver them to the school.  We deliver once fortnightly to greatly reduce delivery costs – and of course carbon emissions!

Ordering online means that the school staff do not have to send out order forms, collect money, collate all the orders and then place a final order with us.  Instead we set up a simple website for each school which shows only their uniform and then do the rest of the legwork leaving the teachers to teach.

The extra good thing for us is that it gives even more reason for potential new school customers to select us as their supplier.  Along side this as we are just about the only supplier who are committed to holding stock of Fairtrade certified school uniform we are getting more and more schools coming on board.  I am just about to write to the Fairtrade Foundation to update them on how well we are doing.

The Welsh and Scottish Fairtrade groups have been particularly active in letting school know about us – so a heartfelt thanks to them.  It shows too …….we have many more schools who have selected Fairtrade school uniform who are based in Wales or Scotland.

Challoner Pupils Lead their School to Fairtrade Status

Students from Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate School

I am quite new to “tweeting” but lots of young people are red hot.  I was really pleased today when a tweet came along from a group of pupils from  Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate school (Wow – what a name) about their efforts for Fairtrade and I saw it!

A local charity called the  Otesha Project had worked together with a group of pupils with a passion to fight for Fairtrade within their school.  Together they  presented a proposal to staff and school governors to make their school a recognised Fairtrade school- and it was accepted.  A fabulous committed effort.

Wonderful news and it just shows how individuals and  groups of determined people (human beings) can really make a difference.  When I visited India I met some of the cotton farmers who grow the Fairtrade certified cotton we use.  They showed me first hand the difference Fairtrade can make.

Just like the ripple in the pond theory.  A small stone dropped in a pond causes ever increasing ripples.  The Challoner pupils have dropped quite a large stone and the ripples will be quite a force.  I really love it when students move things along and actually lead their school or university to change.

Read the full article here with quotes from the pupils and the full story of how they went about it and were successful.

Our effect on the world – the ripples go on and on………..