When I was researching Off Side, I went to visit a fair trade community in Ghana. Part of the story was about a boy whose family were being cheated and not paid a fair rate for their cocoa beans.
One day I found myself in a school deep inside Ghana. The kids there asked me to sing some English football songs. I gave them a bit of Marching On Together and some other numbers. They wanted to know about England, about my books, about football and about my daughter,
The school had been paid for by a dividend that Divine chocolate pay the farmers to help them build schools and medical facilities. They had decent houses too. Thanks to being paid fairtrade prices.
The dividend Divine pays them means that Divine and other fairtrade chocolate costs us a few pence more. It doesn't make that much diference to most of us. But it does to them.
Please - if you're buying Easter eggs, etc. this week - consider buying Fair Trade. You'll be changing lives. I've seen it in action.
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