Trip to LONDON!

Still being very tired from lack of sleep and a busy schedule during the last four days, I decided to write down my experience. For the record, I've been to London with school for four days (Tuesday until Friday.)

Why London? In fourth grade the school organises city trips. London is one of the three (Berlin, Paris and London.) These are big cities relatively nearby and because I don't have German and French as extra language, I went to London.

It was a fantastic trip, very well organised I have to say. This next to the fact that we had a lot of free time, which gave me much time to go shopping and discover London my own. I spent my five hours of free time on Oxford Street with a group of friends, bought a new bag and a shirt and then went back to Leicester square where we had to meet the group again. My intension was to go to Harrods too, but we failed to have enough time left from our free hours. So, that will be on my list when I visit London next time.
London is a huge city. We walked many miles every day, although we used the underground/tube/metro a lot, to get to see all of the main points of London like the Big Ben, Tower Bridge and Tower of London. But also a few museums like the Natural History and the science museum. Those two were way too big for us to see in the few hours we had for it. So, I'll come back for that too.

The nights we spent in a Hostel near Shepherd's Bush. I can really recommend that hostel to everyone who wants to discover London, because it is located very near to a underground station, so you can be in the center of London in like fifteen minutes. The people working there were just friendly but especially the other guests were very nice, funny and sociable from all over the world.

Anyways, the nights were vivacious. In the meaning that we barely slept and had a lot of fun. In three nights I slept, and I think I can speak for most of them, for only about fourteen hours in comparison to the usual twenty-four hours. With during the last night only two hours which was compared to some others (who were up all night)very much.
 Yet, this didn't stop us from having lots of fun and have funny moments all over the place.

In short, I had a memorable time in a beautiful city.

Fair Trade

Yesterday it was the international day of Fair Trade. That, and the fact that I really love the chocolate from Tony's Chocolonely (Dutch chocolate company that has the fair trade label,) made me decide to held a presentation about it. 

 

Fair Trade is about Fair trading. So, giving the amount of money that should be given to farmers or producers of organic commodities. This to give these (poor) farmers a healthy standard of living.

Fair trade is a development model. That means that it will never be finished, it isn't meant to get finished.

Most Fair Trade companies operate in third world countries. These producers need ‘our’ help the most, because those countries are more dependent from the weather and more vulnerable for corruption. To help those producers into the big trading circle some companies designed fair trade.

Fair trade offers producers a better deal and improved terms of trade. This allows them the opportunity to improve their lives and plan for their future. Fair trade offers consumers a way to reduce poverty through their every day shopping.

Why would a companies start being fair trade? Because, if you think about it, it is much more expensive, so you can expect less profit (people don’t want to pay more for product of generic quality.) So to get people to buy more expensive stuff like fair trade, the company has to make the product more interesting or in this case it makes the consumer feel better about themselves. Fair trade is becoming a premium brand.

I think Fair trade is a good concept and sometimes it can really help producers, but other times it is too vulnerable for corruption. Companies may not seem as trustful as they claim to be. Or they misuse the system for fancy propaganda. The companies get supervised. But that supervision will have it’s limits too. The good use of the word Fair trade seems questionable. 

Still, we should probably continue because it does good work.