Keswick
County Councillors, representative of the Coop and members of Cumbrian Fairtrade groups.
May / June 2008
May and June have been exceptionally busy for us. For two weeks from the end of May to mid-June we had staying with us in Keswick Mekonnen Aweke and Raya Abakoyas, two coffee farmer friends from the village of Choche in Southwest Ethiopia with which we have a friendship link. They were accompanied by Nekemte Melaku, also a good friend, from the Oromia Coffee Farmers’ Cooperative Union in Addis Ababa, whose General Manager is Tadesse Meskela, ‘star’ of Black Gold. Nekemte acted as translator.
This visit was the first ‘return’, following our three visits to Ethiopia over the last 2½ years. The aim of the visit was to deepen the friendship between our campaign (and our community) and the coffee farmers of Choche (and their community). Choche is the place where a young goatherd, named Kaldi, ‘discovered’ coffee, through the antics of his goats after they had nibbled wild coffee – 1000 years ago. Only slightly more recently the world’s first pencils were manufactured in Keswick from the graphite (‘black lead’ or ‘wad’) mined in Borrowdale. Therefore, it was appropriate that one of the events on Mekonnen, Raya and Nekemte’s very full schedule was to visit the Pencil Museum in town, to exchange coffee from ‘the birthplace of coffee’ with pencils from ‘the birthplace of pencils’!
Other events included a visit to a farm on the edge of Caldbeck Common; a reception with the Mayor and Mayoress of Keswick (see picture); attending our annual Strawberry Tea in Borrowdale, and also our AGM, where they showed pictures of and spoke about Choche. They also visited Braithwaite Primary School and Honister Slate Mine. They saw the Queen from a wonderful vantage point overlooking the harbour on a visit to Whitehaven. A highlight was a day with the coffee buyers at Taylors of Harrogate. Their last major engagement was attending a showing of Black Gold in Garstang. We believe this was the first showing of the film in Britain at which two coffee farmers were able to testify personally about the impact of the coffee crisis on them and their community.
In between all of our activities we had much fun and laughter together, over shared meals, playing putting in the park and croquet. As a result of the visit, our friendship and our sense of solidarity through Fairtrade have been deepened, and our determination to grow the relationship between Choche and Keswick has been immensely strengthened.
At the end of June members of our campaign helped to facilitate a field visit of 28 Fairtrade fruit farmers from Latin America and Africa who came here following the Annual General Meeting in London of AgroFair, the company of which they are shareholders. AgroFair are the original Fairtrade fruit pioneers, founded in 1996. They introduced the world’s first Fairtrade bananas into Holland in that year under the brand name Oké. AgroFair is a unique company, being 50% owned by and run entirely for the benefit of its producer members. The farmers who came were from Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Ghana.
Reception with the Mayor and Mayoress of Keswick
Based in Keswick, they visited supermarkets in north of the county, a farm just outside Keswick, and had meetings at Theatre by the Lake. On the second of the three days of their stay they were joined by staff from AgroFair’s European and London offices.
Their packed schedule culminated with a grand celebration at Keswick School to which guests came from all over the county, including County Councillors, representative of the Coop and members of Cumbrian Fairtrade groups (see pictures). Keswick and District Fair Trade Campaign and students from Keswick School Fairtrade Group were fully involved, staffing stalls and serving refreshments.
The celebration began with a welcome from the Mayor and Mayoress of Keswick, Roger and Margaret Purkiss, followed by speeches by Debbie Robinson, the Cooperative Group’s Marketing Director, John Bowes, Managing Director of AgroFair UK, and Joe Human, representing both the local and Cumbrian Fairtrade groups. There followed country dancing, a buffet meal, and speeches from Jeroen Kroezen, the CEO of AgroFair Europe, and Roberto Ugalde, a pineapple grower representing Asoproagroin, a Costa Rican AgroFair shareholder. Roberto spoke movingly of the importance of Fairtrade in bringing people together. The evening ended, for those with stamina to stay, with two hours of salsa dancing.
Joe Human, July 2008