During Fairtrade Fortnight 2007, no less than six of Cumbria’s Fairtrade Towns and Villages hosted Samuel Magona, a coffee farmer from Mount Elgon in eastern Uganda. Samuel was invited to Britain by the Fairtrade Foundation and presented the Fairtrade Town award to three of these Cumbrian towns.
   His five day stay included visits to Brampton, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Egremont, Gosforth, Keswick, Kirkby Lonsdale, Ulverston, and Workington. He also visited Cockermouth School, whose students recently put on a Fairtrade Schools Conference for all West Cumbria secondary schools, and in Workington he presented the award of Fairtrade School to St Joseph’s. He was invited to a reception with the County Council Cabinet in Carlisle.
   Samuel Magona has been chairman of the local Busamaga Growers Co-operative since 1982 and is one of the driving forces behind the Gumutindo, a young and innovative coffee co-operative union which now sells into the Fairtrade market ('Gumutindo' means ‘excellent quality’ in the local Lugisu language).
   After college in Kenya, Samuel worked his way up to become marketing manager of a national company. As well as his involvement with Busamaga, he has been a board member of regional and national co-operative organisations, and is an active member of the local community. He is currently President of Mbale Rotary Club and Chair of Busamaga Senior Secondary School. He has twice narrowly missed election to the Ugandan Parliament.
   The three Cumbrian communities which received the award of Fairtrade status from Samuel were Ulverston, Kirkby Lonsdale, and Gosforth and Wasdale. Cumbria now has the greatest number of Fairtrade towns, villages, cities and districts in any county in the country.

During Fairtrade Fortnight 2007, Barrow-in-Furness, Kirkby Lonsdale, Gosforth & Wasdale, and Ulverston declared their new status as Fairtrade Towns. We have also heard that Coniston has passed the criteria to become a Fairtrade Town, which will bring the total to 15.
   A year ago there were eight Fairtrade Towns (cities, villages or zones) in Cumbria - Brampton, Carlisle, Eden Valley, Kendal, Keswick, Lakes parish (which includes Ambleside, Grasmere and Hawkshead), Millom and Windermere & Bowness. Late last year Egremont and Grange-over-Sands were added to that number.
       The Cumbria Network congratulates the hard working Fairtrade Steering Groups in each of our new Fairtrade Towns.

Cumbria became a Fairtrade County in March 2006, only the second county in England to be awarded Fairtrade County status.
   George Alagiah, BBC News Presenter and Journalist, and Patron of the Fairtrade Foundation, presented the award of Fairtrade County status to Cumbria at a special reception in the evening of 11th March in Keswick. Over 200 people attended, most of whom were campaigners from the many Cumbrian campaigning groups; the rest were councillors and other invited guests.
   On receiving the award, Councillor John Collier said: “I am very pleased to accept this award on behalf of the people of Cumbria - people who have been magnificent in their response to Fairtrade. Businesses - particularly within tourism and retail - community groups, schools, churches, families and individuals have all clubbed together to achieve this award. I sincerely hope that support for Fairtrade in Cumbria will continue to grow and grow... this is not the end, it's just the beginning!”