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In this episode we introduce you to two more volunteers with the organisation.
First up is Anne Scriven. Anne has been involved in fair trade for a long time, starting with her local church group in Kirkintilloch though to helping out in the Rainbow Turtle shop, various stalls and events.
We finish with Steph Mayo who started out as a community worker helping local women's group who were interested in global issues. This lead to a meeting with Maureen Brough, a long term volunteer with Rainbow Turtle, helped Steph to get involved. Now Steph volunteers in the shop and is a trustee of the charity.
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In this mini episode we meet our education officer, Linda Okhuoya Ologe. Linda has been on maternity leave for this past year and, just before fair trade fortnight, I popped round to Linda's house to interview her and to hold her new baby, Zoraya!
As well as talking about fair trade, Linda spoke about an interesting project that she'd been involved in to bring fair trade coffee beans from Rwanda and Uganda to Paisley. She linked a new social enterprise, The Alternative Coffee Company, that imported the green beans from the cooperatives, with a small, high quality coffee roaster in the town, called The Gatehouse Coffee Roasters. With this venture she has created a beautiful connection between Paisley and farmers in Uganda and Rwanda.
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In episode 6 of our current series we meet 3 more volunteers from Rainbow Turtle.
First up is Kitty McEachen, an escapee from Glasgow who, to her surprise, found that Paisley wasn't such a bad place to live in, especially when she came upon Rainbow Turtle and some of the committed volunteers, including the inspiring founder, Liz Cotton.
Next we have Duncan Macintosh, a long term supporter of fair trade, and early stall holder, who became a volunteer in the shop when he retired in 2009.
Finally we meet Marianne Sermanni, volunteer and trustee of the charity who, though her friendship with Roisin Mulholland (we spoke to Roisin in episode 2), started working in the shop in 2017.
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In episode 5 of series 3 of our podcast we meet Elise Kelly, our creative shop manager. Elise has been in charge for about three and a half years. She joined us when we were just coming out of covid when things were tight and sales were poor. During that time Elise has transformed Rainbow Turtle shop into a bright and colourful place to come and buy fair trade products.
After Elise we have Jonathan Barr, one of our younger volunteers, who was unemployed when he first joined and now has developed a broad set of retail skills.
Finally, we have Sarah Hurst, our newest volunteer, who combines her background in sales with her developing aptitude in social media to help promote the shop on Facebook and Instagram.
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In this episode we introduce you to Joyce Jackson who started out as a fair trade stall holder in her local church before being inveigled into volunteering at the shop by Liz Cotton when she retired 7 or 8 years ago.
Following Joyce we have Clotilde Raydon, who 6 years ago came into the shop to get some refills for cleaning products. After a couple of visits, Liz Cotton, the then manager and director of the shop, invited Clotilde to become a volunteer.
Finally, we hear from Chris Johnstone, volunteer, director of the shop and chair of the charity trustees. He started out in fair trade when his GP's practice became the first fair trade practice in Scotland.
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In this episode we meet Juliet Robb of Olive Tree, a charity that buys products from crafts people in Palestine and then sells them in Scotland. The money provides the artisans with a living and any profits made from the sales goes to support charities in Palestine.
Juliet first thought about working with people from Palestine after a trip to the Holy Land. At the end of the trip, the minister said to her, "so what are you now going to do!" She now has a successful organisation that sells quality, jewellery, embroidery and ceramics that involves about 20 volunteers, all run out of her house!
I hope that, like me, you'll be inspired by this courageous woman.
[Photo courtesy of Paisley Daily Express]Audio track that introduces all episodes
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In this mini episode, we meet long standing Rainbow Turtle volunteers: Gillian Henry, Roisin Mulholland and Maureen Brough. In it they share why fair trade is important to them and what are their favourite products that they can buy in the shop. Unsurprisingly, chocolate and coffee feature high on their lists!
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Michael Gidney, currently the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, has worked for at least 30 years in international development (which corresponds nicely with the 30th anniversary of FT movement in UK). He started out as a teacher in Kenya and then for their children's services in an orphanage, has worked with Voluntary Services Overseas and with Amnesty International. He joined Traidcraft in 19991 and became Director of Policy, then moved to the Fairtrade Foundation in 2009 as deputy executive director and has been chief executive since 2012. He is also a trustee of Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
This was a most interesting interview where we discussed the dangers of commoditisation of products and the importance of fair trade to producers and farmers.
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Welcome to series 3 of Rainbow Turtle Rebooted the podcast that brings you the people and their stories from the world of fair trade. In this series we interview Michael Gidney, the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, the organisation that oversees fair trade in the UK. We also meet Juliet Robb, the founder of Olive Tree, the charity that buys goods from artisans in the holy land in order to support them and their families.
We also have something new for you, following some feedback that we received, saying that we don't really explain what Rainbow Turtle is, we've set up a number of short interviews from our volunteers who talk about how they got involved in the organisation and what their favourite fair trade product is.Audio track that introduces all episodes
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In this episode I am delighted to be talking with Rachel Farey of the One World Shop in Edinburgh. It's a beautiful shop positioned at the western end of Princes Street in Edinburgh with the historic castle as a backdrop.
Rachel has had an interesting journey that started with working with L'Arche after she left school. L'arche is an international federation of Non-profit organisations working to create networks of community where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together. From there she studied theology at Kent University where a friendship took her to Edinburgh and she started volunteering for the fledgling One World Shop. After a few years volunteering and then working for the organisation, she retrained as a religious education teacher and taught for a few years, before finally returning to the shop as manager.
Rachel was involved setting up the British Association of Fair Trade Shops, was chair of the Edinburgh fair trade group, helped set up the Scottish Fair Trade Forum and was part of the team that helped Scotland become recognised as a fair trade nation.
In addition, Rachel has travelled extensively in the Indian subcontinent meeting producers and understanding the difference that fair trade makes to their lives.
Whilst I was chatting with Rachel I was struck by her knowledge of fair trade, the people involved, and the place that Scotland has played in helping producers and farmers across the world. We are fortunate to have people like her on our side!
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In this episode we are playing a recording of a talk by Sally Sawaya of Meru Herbs in Kenya that she gave recently to the staff of True Origin and Rainbow Turtle in Paisley, Scotland. Sally is the managing director of Meru Herbs, the Kenyan fair trade company that produces tasty sauces, jams and herbal teas. Meru is a semi arid region of the country where, for many years, water was hard to obtain for farming and domestic use. Things changed just over 30 years ago with a collaboration between the Meru catholic diocese, the Italian government, and the local people which implemented a project to provide water to about 430 families. This change in conditions sparked off the creation of Meru Herbs that went on to improve the lives of many people and empowered women to both work in and run the company.
Sally's story is one of many of the inspiring ones that have come out of Meru Herbs, where a change in circumstance, combined with fair trade, has transformed their lives. Sally started as an intern with Meru Herbs when she was at university studying for a degree in marketing. She went onto work for the company in various areas before becoming the managing director. Other women have been able to buy land and grow their own food. In rural areas it was often the boys who were sent to school, not the girls, because there wasn't the money to pay for both. The conventional wisdom was that the family got a better return by educating the boys.
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In this episode we meet Mary Popple the current chair of JTS, the company that imports fair trade goods into Scotland and distributes them throughout the UK.
Mary grew up in Northern Ireland during the 50s and 60s on the border between the republic and the north. Her father was a church minister who tried not to take sides and, as tensions increased, took his family to Scotland. Those early years in northern Ireland gave Mary a strong sense of the importance of equality and of treating people fairly.
Mary has had an interesting journey to fair trade that has gone via the diamond industry and business management. It was her expertise in managing a business that led her to being invited onto the board of JTS. When she was a member of the St. Andrew's Fair Trade group they contacted the Royal and Ancient to ask if they would consider using fair trade teas and coffees. A successful relationship was established and now it is written into their procedures to use fair trade products at the Open golf championship.
Mary has a bright and positive outlook on life and it was a real pleasure to listen to her thoughts on how a fair trade business should be run.Audio track that introduces all episodes
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In this episode we bring you part 2 of the John Riches interview. (If you've not heard it, do check out part 1 where John talks about his early life and influences.)
We join John where he talks about setting up the Balmore Trust and The Coach House, instruments that were used to generate funds for overseas projects. Very quickly they got involved in buying products from people in small communities in Asia when they realised it was better to do that than give them grants. From there it was a small jump to getting involved in fair trade where it's about supporting the farmers and producers which then benefit their families and creates stable communities.
He's had about 40 years working in fair trade that includes setting up JTS that got involved in the Scotland Malawi partnership and buying and importing rice from small farmers in a land locked country. For the farmer, selling 90Kg of rice would allow them to send a child to school for a year. He has a lot of insights into fair trade and I'm sure you'll enjoy this episode as much as I did.Audio track that introduces all episodes
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In this episode, John tells interesting stories of working in a refugee camp in Austria after the 2nd world war, of being a chaplain at Cambridge University at the height of the student protests in the late 60s; working in the Transkei in South Africa during the apartheid era and meeting anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko. He covers his time at Glasgow University teaching about the new testament in the bible and following a student out to Burmah to meet local villagers trying to live under the oppressive regime there. We end this episode in Glasgow during the late 1970s where he is teaching divinity to students and wrestling with the concept of how to help those who are struggling in developing countries around the world.
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This short taster introduces Series 2 of the podcast. In this new series we'll be bringing you interviews with John Riches founder of JTS, Mary Popple of the St. Andrews Fair Trade Group and current chair of JTS and the Alternative Coffee Co. an exciting project that links fair trade speciality coffee farmers from Uganda and Rwanda with micro coffee roasters in the UK.
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We have another throwback podcast for you where we're back to fair trade fortnight in 2016 and to Josh Brown's original Rainbow Turtle podcast series. This is part 2 of the episode that we re-released back in the beginning of January.
In this part, Josh interviews Martin Rhodes and Graham Clark of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum at their AGM, where he also meets fair trade campaigner, Mary Alice Mansell of the Lochwinnoch fair trade group.
He talks to rice farmer, Howard Msukwa, from Malawi, to Ishmael Diaz, a honey producer from Guatemala, and Liam McLaughlin, former warehouse manager at JTS, the Scottish fair trade importer and supplier.
Josh records MPs Gavin Newlands and Mhairi Black answering questions from pupils from Gryffe High School.
Finally, there is a wee piece from Jings and Scrivens talking about the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. -
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This episode takes us back to February 2016 to the very first Rainbow Turtle podcast which was previously thought to be lost. Part 1 of this episode takes us on a fair trade journey:
It starts with founder, Liz Cotton, talking to school pupils.It then chats to attendees at the Scottish Fair Trade Forum AGM,Before Ross Beattie looks at fair trade in Uzbekistan and Lynsay Bellshaw talks about her average day at Rainbow Turtle. The episode finishes with an interview with rice farmer, Howard Msukwa, from Malawi. -
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Welcome to this special Christmas episode of the Rainbow Turtle Rebooted podcast where I’m delighted to be able to interview Pauline Tiffen of the Journal of Fair Trade. Ever since I started this series I have been trying to get Pauline onto it. I first heard her speak at a Scottish Fair Trade Forum lecture back in the summer of 2020, at the height of lock down, when she spoke about the future of fair trade. It struck me then that her thinking about fair trade was on a different level to mine.
She’s been involved in fair trade, or earlier versions of it, since the mid 1980s. She helped set up Cafe Direct and Divine Chocolate. Pauline was head hunted by the World Bank to look at ethical financing. And she currently edits the Journal of Fair Trade and is involved in the setting up of a business to business project, which links cooperative coffee farmers in landlocked Uganda and Rwanda with small coffee roasters and coffee shops around the UK.
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This is the 2nd part of Martin Rhode’s talk that he gave to Rainbow Turtle at their AGM back in October. In part one he talked about the links between COP26 and Fair Trade. In this episode he answers questions from the audience and goes into some of the areas more deeply. Some of the questions he dealt with were:
How did we prevent the global south paying for the cost of the climate emergency, What was happening to tariffs that was preventing producers from exporting finished products rather than raw materials, And, what was the Scottish Fair Trade Forum doing after COP26?So pour yourself a cup of fair trade tea, sit back and relax…
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In this episode we talk to Mauro Pereira from Brazil. He is the executive director of Defenders of the Planet, an environmental campaign group based in Rio de Janiero. He is attending the COP26 summit as the focal point for Latin America for the sustainable development goals.
Mauro talks passionately about our environment, especially at what has been lost or destroyed in his home country, he talks about his early influences and what led him to campaign for the environment.
This episode was recorded ahead of the start of COP26 and we were fortunate to hear from Mauro before he spoke to the conference on Thursday 4th November.
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