The School Council recently attended a Fairtrade Conference at the Eden Project.
Their day started early as they travelled by train and bus to Cornwall. Upon arrival they met up with other schools from the south-west. They attended a tea-growers workshop, where they became part of the Fairtrade Premium Committee and had to decide how to spend the premiums on necessities such as hospitals, teachers, buildings, water, food etc.
They found it incredibly difficult to prioritise and realised just how important the Fairtrade premium is for the farmers and villagers. Another workshop taught them all about different types of nuts and how they are grown and harvested. This workshop ended up in one of the Biomes looking at a Cashew Nut tree. The children took this opportunity to look around the Tropical Biome before starting our return journey back to Dawlish.
For many of our children, the highlight was meeting Esther and Samuel from Ghana. The two teenagers are travelling around the UK meeting up with lots of school children and telling their story of growing up on a cocoa bean farm. They brought with them a cocoa pod and cocoa beans, as well as chocolate for all to taste. And if all that wasn’t enough, Cockwood School Council got the chance to make their own smoothie, pedalling hard on the Smoothie Bike!