Fairtrade

As always, the school took part in Fairtrade Fortnight and in 2014

( 24 February – 9 March), there were a number of events and activities.

Every year, in the UK we eat more than 5 billion bananas and spend over £550

million on them . . . one third of these is Fairtrade but in the last 10 years, a bitter price war has seen the UK supermarkets almost halve the price of loose bananas while the cost of producing them has doubled. This is trapping many farmers and workers in poverty.
Fairtrade Fortnight 2014 launched a campaign to ‘Abolish the Unfair Banana’ with

a 44 - year - old Colombian Fairtrade banana farmer called Albeiro Alfonso ‘Foncho’ Cantillo featuring on stickers with the message ‘Stick with Foncho’.

Classes were able to watch short videos in school of Foncho spreading the message

and Fairtrade lessons featured in a number of subjects, involving different year groups . . . one of these was a third year Geography class, where the pupils took part in some role play, such as the Banana Split Game and a mini play about the Fairtrade banana supply chain.

The pupils then produced some collages using Fairtrade Foncho stickers and over 150 pupils and staff signed a banana poster in a petition to Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, urging action on the supermarkets selling bananas at rock bottom prices.

Foncho paid a brief visit to Glasgow and Mr Raeburn, Mr Durkan and Mrs Chainey had the pleasure of meeting him in Partick on Saturday 8th March . . . his beaming smile and infectious personality helped to warm us up on a chilly March morning !

He gave a short but very enlightening presentation, during which he emphasised how big a difference Fairtrade has meant to him, his family and fellow producers. As a result of Fairtrade, his farm’s output has increased from 16 to 46 boxes of bananas each week, allowing him to send his 19-year-old daughter to college and his 16-year-old son to school. It was also great to learn that the environment has also benefitted, with no chemicals being used and recycling more of a feature than beforehand.

A Staff Fairtrade Tea / Coffee Morning with a raffle of Fairtrade goodies took place during interval on Friday 7th March which was well supported. A Fairtrade football raffle for pupils resulted in Temuri Sikharulidze of 1F1 winninga Fairtrade Football – congratulations !

Over £270 was raised from these events and a cheque will be sent to SCIAF.

An account of these events and activities will appear on the Fairtrade Foundation and Scottish Fair Trade Forum websites :

Plan Bee

The Secretary of State for Scotland, Alistair Carmichael MP visited Lourdes Secondary early on Thursday, 20th February to help launch the Plan Bee project.

The Conference Room hosted this event, attended by Mrs Lennon, Mrs Downie,

Mrs Twaddle and Mr Raeburn along with Eco Committee senior pupils and other pupils from various year groups. In addition, two members of staff from Rosshall Academy accompanied by some pupils joined Warren Bader and staff from Plan Bee Ltd.

After thought-provoking presentations from Mr Bader and Mr Carmichael, there was a short Q/A session, followed by a chance to eat some pancakes covered with natural honey.

In the last year in Scotland alone, we lost 30% of our beehives. The loss of these beehives and the bees within them means that we are losing the ability to naturally pollinate. The Plan Bee project aims to educateall about the damage it is doing to the environment and how ultimately this will lead to a detrimental diet for every human being.

If we – the world as a whole – continues on the current path, then the price of fruit and veg will multiply astronomically as the bee population is decimated and we have no natural pollinators.

There has to be a different and better way to protect and increase biodiversity for future generations.

There is – it is called Plan Bee.

Mrs Twaddle and Mr Sheridan, working with third year Art & design pupils, are busy decorating our hive, based on the theme of Commonwealth countries. – we will send photographs and information to Plan Bee, which will then be uploaded onto a specially designed page on the Plan Bee website. The competition will finish in late May, after which electronic voting will take place via several social media sites. Pupils, teachers, friends and families can then vote for their favourite design. . . voting is free.

The electronic voting will close at the end of the first week in June and in the second week of June an awards ceremony will be held at the City Chambers. It is hoped to have judges who are Commonwealth Games contestants and some local celebrities present.

Twitter and Facebook: @planbeeltd/planbeeltd


The Eco Committee meets in room 140 every second Wednesday at 12.55pm . . .

Mr Raeburn , Miss Jamieson and Ms Gallagher appreciate the commitment shown by the senior pupils in attending and supporting our continuing work on environmental matters, local and global. New members, especially from the lower school, are very welcome to

come along and offer their help.

Eco School assessors are due to visit the school during the morning of Wednesday 23rd April in connection with our attempts to be awarded a third green flag.

Litter

A competition to design an anti-litter poster attracted entries for different year groups . . . many thanks to those pupils who submitted some very colourful and creative entries!

Eventually, a winner and two runner-ups were selected by pupils and staff .

Congratulations to Saher Sattar of 3K2 whose poster won and who wins a £30 Braehead gift voucher ! Well done also to Charlotte Fraser of 1J1 and Deerab Khan of 1M1 whose entries resulted in them winning £15 iTunes vouchers as runners-up. Several senior Eco Committee pupils approached local businesses along Paisley Road West, looking for their support in this venture to improve the local environment by displaying the winning poster on their premises.

Pupils and staff from the school will once again take part in this annual Spring Clean event, helping to improve the local environment by removing unsightly litter from the streets near the school and Paisley Road West . . . the date is still to be finalised after registering our continued support.