May 2003
Here is what the Vancouver Fair Trade Coffee Network will be doing for Fair Trade Week in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
1) On Thursday, May 15, we will be hosting a public event in which a small coffee farmer from Guatemala will speak and we will also show a video about Fair Trade coffee. The event will take place at SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1900, starting at 7:00 pm.
2) On Saturday, May 17 we will be taking a Fair Trade Caravan through the streets of Vancouver and will be making about 9 or 10 stops in the city. We will have jugglers, clowns, musicians, and we will be distributing literature and giving out free samples of Fair Trade coffee, cocoa, chocolate, and fruit.
Fair Trade Day: Up here in Canada, we've actually stretched the day into a week... and the Network is planning events on two days.
We've managed to get the Mayor of Vancouver to pronounce May 11-17 "Fair Trade Week", and we're going to arrange a press conference on the Thursday so he can tell the city. We'll also have a local university professor present the results of a survey he recently conducted about Fair Trade coffee in Vancouver, and have a coffee producer speak about the importance of Fair Trade. We'll be serving Fair Trade coffee at City Hall that day.
Later that night, we'll have that same producer present a documentary about this cooperative, have an interactive discussion with the audience, then show the Martin Sheen FT commercial followed by some film. (We expect 50-150 people for this).
Then on Saturday we're putting together a "Fair Trade Caravan" (aka Guerrilla Fair) where we'll have a bunch of white vans decorated with Fair Trade materials (one wearing a paper-mache coffee mug) and blasting music from coffee producing countries, touring along the streets. They'll stop at key locations (places with crowds), and people in costumes, fire jugglers, stilt walkers, street performers, and possibly a samba band will pour out to create a spectacle. Decorated tents and tables will also go up, and volunteers also dressed up in costumes will hand out samples of Fair Trade products, information about Fair Trade, and where people can buy it. Then we'll pack up and go somewhere else.
We'll also be taking out a decent sized ad in a widely circulated community newspaper, and have gotten at least one other event to serve Fair Trade coffee during that week. As you can imagine, it's a huge project for an organization with no income earning capacity or staff, but it should be a lot of fun!
Here is what the Vancouver Fair Trade Coffee Network will be doing for Fair Trade Week in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
1) On Thursday, May 15, we will be hosting a public event in which a small coffee farmer from Guatemala will speak and we will also show a video about fair trade coffee. The event will take place at SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1900, starting at 7:00 pm.
2) On Saturday, May 17 we will be taking a Fair Trade Caravan through the streets of Vancouver and will be making about 9 or 10 stops in the city. We will have jugglers, clowns, musicians, and we will be distributing literature and giving out free samples of fair trade coffee, cocoa, chocolate, and fruit.
There may be another event or activity as well but these are the only two we have confirmed.
