Fair Trade Fortnight

It's Fair Trade Fortnight: two weeks in which we can celebrate how buying fair trade products makes a difference to farmers around the world.

I went to Ghana to research my children's novel, Off Side. It is the story of a boy who is the son of a cocoa farmer. He is a great footballer and is taken to Europe to sign for a big team.

I travelled to Ghana to get my facts right. I wanted to see youth football in Ghana and I wanted to see what cocoa bean farming was like.

Divine - who make Dubble Bars too - were very generous and showed me round.  I learned a lot about the differences between fair and unfair trade. I met farmers and their children and I saw the schools and other facilities that had been built with the extra few pence we spend on each fair trade chocolate bar.

It makes a MASSIVE difference.

I'm touring several schools in the next fortnight to talk about how I researched the book and how Fair Trade chocolate does make such a difference.

I will not eat any of the several hundred Dubble Bars I have in the boot of my car.

http://www.dubble.co.uk

Ghana for the African Nations'

I want Ghana to win the African Nation's Cup.

There's a young man I email in Ghana. He lives in a town called Tamale in the Northern Region.

I got to know him around the time I went to research my book, Off Side, which is about fair trade and young footballers being exploited.

I asked him if he was enjoying the African Nations' Cup.

He said that he and his family could neither watch it nor listen to it, because they don't have a TV, radio or electricity.

So my family sent his family this wind-up radio. I posted it today.

It should arrive in five to seven days, meaning he will have it in time for the semi-finals.

That's why I want Ghana to win.

Come on Ghana!