FAIRTRADE BRAND TEAMS UP WITH THE BIG ISSUE
Following the successful sponsorship of the Big Issue Magazine in the UK, Origin Wine, with its Fairtrade brand Farhills, has extended its support to the Big Issue in South Africa by sponsoring 1500 waterproof jackets for the local street vendors - all of which display the Fairtrade Mark!
In line with the empowerment philosophy of Fairtrade, Fairhills contribution is aimed at strengthening the vendors' professional status as certified distributors of the Big Issue magazine. This has the potential to increase trust relations with the public, who can easier identify the qualified vendors at street corners.
The Big Issue is a job creation programme that has organised a vendor sales operation for the unemployed, the homeless and the socially excluded adults. The programme is further supported by a series of business skill training in order to encourage vendors to acquire additional abilities and move further into mainstream formal jobs.
The Fairhills Association is one of the largest Fairtrade projects in the world in which 22 Fairtrade certified farms, along with their farm workers, participate. Members of the association have full control over the Fairtrade premiums received from the sales of Fairhills wine, which they spend for a variety of social projects. Amongst them is the establishment and now maintenance of 3 Day Care Centres with the related creation of 15 permanent jobs, the improvement of workers' housing, the funding of various scholarship programs for students of the community and regular training sessions for farm workers and community members.
Bernard Fontannaz, CEO of Origin Wine and founder of Fairhills, calls the sponsorship "a natural partnership", as both projects share the same fundamental principles. He adds, "these initiatives we've chosen to support are not charities but organised businesses seeking to provide an income to people in need; people who are trying to re-insert themselves into society. It is indeed 'not a hand out but a hand up'"
