Taste the World

This year’s edition of the Taste the World fair trade festival will be held this Saturday at St. James Cavalier. Adrian Grima writes in BabelMed:

..The highlights of this year’s fair trade festival are a seminar on the cotton industry between 10.00am and 1.00pm, including the screening of a documentary film on the situation of garment workers in Cambodia, and a concert starting at 8.00pm featuring violinist Simon Vella, oud player Walid from Sudan, and African music and dance. Entrance to all events is free of charge.

Fair trade products, ranging from foodstuffs, handicrafts and clothes, to musical instruments and CDs of world music will be on sale throughout the day from stalls manned by the volunteers that run the Maltese fair trade shop L-Arka. On Friday 8th December, the fair trade activists will also be showing the film The Take which follows Argentina’s radical new movement of occupied businesses, groups of workers who are claiming the country’s bankrupt workplaces and running them without bosses..

“The theme “Cotton: Caught in a dirty business” highlights the need to establish fair and sustainable practices that would benefit both the workers and the local communities, and the natural environment. This seminar, which is open to the general public, is funded by the “Playing Fair Alternative” EU development education project, supported by Forum Malta fl-Ewropa and held in collaboration with the “Global Action Schools” project.

During the Festival, the four Maltese organisations that make up the Forum for Justice and Cooperation, including the fair trade organisation Koperattiva Kummerċ Ġust, will be presenting information about the EU-funded development education and GLEN projects in which they are involved...