Fair Trade Fortnight.

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Hi, On Monday, we’re celebrating the start of Fairtrade Fortnight with two unique opportunities to hear directly from Fairtrade farmers taking on the climate crisis.During these two completely free online events, farmers from Kenya, Ghana and Peru will answer your questions live. Check out all the details below, and sign up to join us. #1: Farmers, the documentary: Film screening and Q & A, 7pm UK time, Monday 21 February Fairtrade coffee farmer Caroline Rono stars in this special cut of ‘Farmers Fighting the Global Crisis’. And for this special online screening, Caroline will be joining us live from Kenya to answer audience questions.Actor, director and Fairtrade Foundation Patron Adjoa Andoh hosts the discussion, which focuses in on the impact of climate change for farmers like Caroline. SIGN UP FOR THIS EVENT  #2: Meet Hugo and Bismark: Fairtrade farmers taking on the climate crisis, 1:30pm UK time, Monday 21 February Hugo, a coffee farmer in Peru, and Bismark, a cocoa farmer from Ghana, both live with the reality of climate change. Every day, they are taking on the climate crisis, working hard to build a sustainable future for their community.In conversation with Fairtrade Foundation CEO Mike Gidney, Bismark and Hugo discuss how choosing Fairtrade supports this vital work. They’ll also be answering your questions live. SIGN UP TO THIS EVENT We hope you can join us on Monday to celebrate the start of what promises to be an extra special Fairtrade Fortnight. Want to see what else is planned for the Choose The World You Want festival?  Check out our festival website – new events, discounts, competitions and stories from Fairtrade farmers are being added all the time.Have a great Fairtrade Fortnight, Stefan  Campaigns Team, Fairtrade Foundation

We’ve recently updated our privacy notice. Please read it for up-to-date information about how we use and look after your personal information.Manage your preferences | UnsubscribeFairtrade Foundation, 5.7 The Loom, 14 Gower’s Walk, London, E1 8PYWe are a registered charity in England and Wales (no 1043886) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England (no 2733136).

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19 February, Going Viral CIV: Back to the Roots in Peru

Young corn (or maize)

Corona virus, covid-19, has made itself felt all over the world, with stories we might not hear above the noise of the local news. Here is a story of new growth in Lima, occasioned by the pandemic, told by the Columban missionaries working there. The context is that Fr Tom was stuck in Peru when lockdown came, so he looked around and found something to do, with ‘great success’. Follow the link to read the whole story.

“Tom had gained a lot of
experience on the land back in Ireland,
so he suggested he would use his time
digging and planting part of our grounds.
Not only would it keep him occupied, but it
would also make us partially self-sufficient.
He sowed vegetables, corn, herbs and
some potatoes. The experiment was a
great success, they all grew like mad!

Click to access pages1to5_web_UK-27043-FAR-EAST-JAN-FEB-22.pdf

June 9: Pentecost, We hear them speak.

St Aloysius, Somers Town, London.

Two articles came before my eyes on the same day. In one, an English divorce lawyer said that the main cause of marriage breakdown was lack of communication: spouses not speaking to each other.

The other article was in the Columban Fathers’ Far East magazine for September 2018. Father Willie Lee, a Fijian missionary who has worked in Peru described how he was inspired by the missionaries who ‘were always there with the grassroots people, crossing boundaries and cultures and learning another language. It gave them a feeling of belonging.

‘The sacrifices they made in their calling, in their missionary life, amazed me. If these people can leave their family, come this far … and be happy on their mission, why can’t I do this?’

Learning another language is hard work, very few Pentecost morning experiences these days; if people are to hear us speaking their own language, we must first get close to them and learn to listen.

Let us pray for ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

To read the interview with Fr Lee by Mark Bowling see the message below from the Columbans’ Katie Howard:

We are so pleased to hear that you feature the Far East magazine in your blog. Please use link below and scroll down to ‘Past Issues’ where your readers can download the September/ October 2018 edition of the Far East:

https://columbans.co.uk/publications/far-east

August 1: Shared Table XIII, Dishonouring the poor at table.

If there shall come into your assembly a man having a golden ring, in fine apparel, and there shall come in also a poor man in mean attire, and you have respect to him that is clothed with the fine apparel, and shall say to him: Sit thou here well; but say to the poor man: Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool: do you not judge within yourselves, and are become judges of unjust thoughts?

Hearken, my dearest brethren: hath not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him? But you have dishonoured the poor man.

James 2:2-6.

I was struck between the eyes by a restaurant review which described the diners as bravely consuming roasted grasshoppers and silkworms. Where did the chef source them, I wondered. It all sounded like the decadent feasts portrayed in Asterix the Gaul comic books. Then I read an article by Joseph Pons, a student at ICES University in France.¹ He writes about quinoa, the so-called super-food.

I had images of acres of the stuff, ripening in Somerset. Wrong! Quinoa comes from Bolivia and Peru and was a staple for poor people, till rising prices meant they had to sell all they could produce and buy rice from Asia to feed their families. Meanwhile, richer Asian people are buying Western agricultural produce.

Quinoa cost forty times the price of wheat in European markets in 2013.

Yes, I tend to think of a global food chain as linking us together for good, but in this case it is not for the good of all. And so far as I know I’ve never eaten quinoa, grasshoppers, or silkworms. But then one of our mottoes here at Agnellus Mirror is ‘Eat whatever they put before you’, (Luke 10:7) so who knows what will be on the menu some day?

Let’s hope it will not be served to us to the dishonour of the producer, and let’s strive to avoid such damaging fads.

text and photo: MMB

Barley in Kent.

1Joseph Pons: L’Avenir commence demain en consummant differement, in La Ruche ICES, 22/5/2017, p10.