The Fairtrade Guernsey Blog

There has been world-wide concern about the extreme suffering in Haiti, an already severely impoverished country. And Guernsey has already shown itself to be as caring and generous as ever, with so many people giving financial help. It is good to learn that The Fairtrade Foundation will support any activity to help its producers and partners. Offers of donations to the producers are much appreciated, however food and water are the primary needs at the moment. Development organisations are best placed to meet these needs so please do continue to refer enquirers to the disaster fund websites such as the Disaster Emergencies Committee at http://www.dec.org.uk

Dominican Republic producers also help. Fairtrade certified producers in the nearby Dominican Republic have offered support. Producers (Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade) have formed a commission which is trying to work out how help can be organized. The Fairtrade producers of coffee, cocoa and bananas and the non-Fairtrade banana producers have started contributing with funds. They have started sending water and medication. Next, in addition to water they will also send food and bananas in lorries. In the next months the farmers plan on helping to rebuild houses destroyed.