Spread the Fairtrade love by hi-jacking Valentine´s Day!
In 2003, Balcarras School P&P group decided to use St Valentine´s Day as an opportunity to promote Fairtrade products like cake and chocolate and to make people aware of the need to make trade fair. They ran a delivery service where students could send Fairtrade goods and a message to their friends or sweethearts. It was so successful that we decided to share the idea with the rest of the network, and officially make Valentine´s Day, People & Planet´s Fairtrade Loveday!
Ideas from last year:
Chipping Norton School P&P sold hundreds of Divine chocolate bars, each with their own exclusive message on a hand-crafted heart. Royal Forest of Dean also delivered chocolate - complete with a singing quartet to serenade the recipient!
Westcliffe High School sold their chocolate delivery service out of a heart shaped box which played love songs. They also ran an assembly on Fairtrade beginning with their own version of a tragic love scene to demonstrate that `love´s not fair, and neither is world trade´.
Leeds University P&Pers dressed up as hearts to make their deliveries. The recipient got a single red Fairtrade rose, along with condoms, Fairtrade chocolate and information on how to get involved in Fairtrade activities at the university.
Why not dedicate the next day of romance to helping heal broken trade relationships. Browse through previous Love Day Action Guides: 2005 and 2006 for some campaigning ideas to get you started; and make sure you let us know what you’re planning so we can use it to inspire the rest of the People & Planet network!
Fairtrade Love Day is also a fantastic opportunity to advance your Fairtrade status campaign. Send ‘Love Fairtrade’ cards to key people who can help you win your campaign. You could target your catering manager asking them to stock Fairtrade products in the canteen or vending machines. Or you might decide to target your Head-teacher or Vice Chancellor asking them to support your campaign. Once you´ve decided, all you need to do is make the cards, write your messages, get as many people to sign it as possible and then deliver them. Don´t forget to arrange a follow-up meeting a few days later to see what they thought. You could also send cards to local shop managers asking them to stock Fairtrade.
Running a successful Fairtrade Love Day
Step 1: Hold a planning meeting.
Firstly, you need to decide when to have your Fairtrade Love Day. Valentines Day (14th February) would be best but if that falls at a bad time, do it another day! You need to decide what you are going to deliver on the day. For example, chocolate, cakes, or roses. You should also attach Valentines message cards to each item like the one shown on the right. You can put a Fairtrade message on one side and the sender can write a Valentines message on the other. Make sure you share jobs out amongst the members of your group.
Step 2. Advertise the event
Do this by making posters and fliers, and by giving notices in lectures, meetings, assemblies and classes. Make sure you communicate what the service is, how and where to place an order, and why you are doing it. Put the posters up at least a week in advance to make sure as many people know about the service as possible. Also make sure the local media know what you´re up to.
Spread the love on Fairtrade Love Day
Step 3. Hold a stall
Plan the times and location of your stall so that as many people as possible will notice it. Make it as eye-catching and informative as possible with loads of balloons, posters, fliers and even giant hearts. You could have some romantic music playing. You´ll need to have your message cards ready for people to write to their Valentine and order forms for people to give the name of their Valentine and information on when and where they want it delivered. Explain to each person what Fairtrade is and why they should Love Fairtrade! Give them a Fairtrade flier for more information, and ask them to sign your Love Fairtrade cards.
Getting the media interested.
Your Fairtrade Love Day event would make a fantastic story for your local newspaper, radio and TV stations. They love stories about young people doing interesting things especially if there is a good photo opportunity. The way to get your story in the media and get all the information across is to write a press release. Send one out well in advance of the day, one just before, and one more afterwards. More information on writing press releases can be found online in the P&P groups´ guide.
More ideas for Fairtrade Love Day
- Hold a poetry competition with a Fairtrade prize for the best poem.
- Get as many people as possible to dress up in red for the day.
- Make Love Fairtrade T-shirts to wear on the day
- Hold an assembly, meeting or party with a fun Fairtrade theme
- Hold a quiz with Fairtrade products for prizes.
- Hold a Fairtrade banana eating contest
Use Fairtrade Love Day as a way to demonstrate how trade rules and systems are unfair
Street theatre
Get a group of people together and act out tragic love scenes: (either as street theatre or in assemblies) but change the endings so that they appear upbeat! Choose a tragic love scene, write a script and act it out! Once you’ve finished and people are applauding, with slightly puzzled expressions on their faces, explain to them that world trade at the moment is a lot like love: sometimes it’s damagingly, tragically unfair. But with trade we have the power to affect the tragic endings, to make them positive and uplifting: through Trade Justice.
Ideas for tragic love scenes
- Romeo and Juliet
- Othello
- Gone with the Wind
- A Streetcar Named Desire
- Titanic
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s
- Ghost
- Philadelphia
- The English Patient
- Casablanca
Unfair speed dating
Organise a speed dating event in your school or university. But advertise it as slightly unconventional speed dating, where the same rules don’t apply to everyone. You could either be really lucky, or really unlucky. Present it as a challenge — how well will you fare in a world of unjust rules and biased judges?! Charge people an entrance fee. At the end of the session, ask people to express how they feel. Explain that if the rules seemed to them to be arbitrary and unfair for a social event, imagine how they would feel if their entire livelihoods and very survival depended on a system that worked in that way.
Ideas for making your speed-dating event unfair
- Give people different types of scorecards — e.g. Some people should be allowed to choose more people that they like than other people
- Give certain people things that they have to talk about - e.g. they have to recount an embarrassing event; or use certain words or phrases in their conversation; or have conversations about a random topic of your specification
- Put restrictions on what some people are allowed to talk about
- Keep interrupting certain people’s conversations or cutting them short
- Make some people put on ridiculous masks or clothing