Website created and
maintained by
Heidi Stevenson.

The products that you put in your weekly shopping basket can affect the lives of people living thousands of miles away.

Okay, that's the "tugging at your heartstrings" part of the equation. There is, also, the personal benefit gained from purchasing fair trade goods. Fair Trade foods are grown sustainably, ensuring a better future for all of us. Because sustainably-grown crops do not deplete the soil, they provide superior nutrition. Fair Trade helps create a more peaceful world—one you can be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren. Fair trade goods are often made much closer to home than you might ever have imagined. Businesses in Scotland and throughout Europe design and arrange for manufacture adhering to Fair Trade standards, thus producing sustainable and lasting businesses and employment for our economy. Fair Trade goods aren't just run-of-the-mill or boring.

What more could you possibly want from products you purchase? They're good quality, they help make life better for people all over the world, and buying Fair Trade simply makes you feel good!

Stirling—A Fair Trade City

In 2004, the City of Stirling became a proud Fairtrade City, which is active in promoting Fairtrade products. Fair Trade Stirling is a volunteer organisation that coordinated with Stirling and FLO to achieve this status. We continue to work closely with the Stirling Council—along with local shops, cafés, employers, and local organisations—to promote Fair Trade and Fairtrade in and around Stirling, and are quite pleased with the progress made towards popularising the products. We are open to anyone with an interest in helping us promote Fair Trade.

Jennifer Wattaka has a coffee farm in Uganda, works full time as the parish's chief administrator, has 3 boys and 3 girls, and is studying public administration and management at night. Her busy life sounds very much like that of many women in Stirling.

She is able to do all this because her farm is part of a cooperative that is able to do Fairtrade business. Not only does this help Jennifer and her family, it also improves the lives of everyone in her community. Jennifer says:

As a woman, being involved with Fairtrade is very helpful. They transport the coffee by lorry so we don’t have to carry it on our backs. We understand the coffee business now and Fairtrade has taught us how to improve the quality of our coffee. It also helps women sell their coffee, we have a good market now. Fairtrade is also giving women freedom of speech. When we are paid we buy what we want and don’t have to ask our husbands and we know how to budget for our household needs. We have tasted Cafédirect which has our own coffee in it. It was very delicious!

_{Thanks to FLO for use of this photo.}