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.
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.
In this edition of our podcast, Rainbow Turtle Rebooted, 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.
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.
In this mini podcast 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!
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.
We’re delighted to announced that series 3 of our podcast, Rainbow Turtle Rebooted, is planned to be released during fair trade fortnight 2024 with episode 1 out on Monday 9th September. So if you’d like to listen to it, please subscribe to it in your relevant app. In the meantime, here is a taster…
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!
In this episode we play 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 left university with a degree in marketing and started out as an intern with Meru Herbs. 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.
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.
