BBC newsman speaks on behalf of Fairtrade

During an obviously busy speaking schedule George Alagiah OBE, BBC newsman, Fairtrade Foundation patron and well-known Catholic found himself at the pristine Ahmadiyya Mosque in Hartlepool on a beautiful afternoon in early May speaking to an audience of around 100 people. Following introductions by Martin Green of the Hartlepool Fairtrade Working Group and a warm welcome by Bilal Atkinson on behalf of the Ahmadiyya community, Mr Alagiah spoke first of how privileged he felt to be in a mosque and recalled the Muslim devotions he had seen as a child in Ghana. He said that he felt as if he were “a brick in the bridge we’re building between communities”.

Moving on to his BBC work he spoke of how, after 15 years, he had tired of his role as a foreign correspondent ‘bringing home the worst side of humanity’ to viewers and the burden he felt of ‘reporting the problem’. When offered the role of patron of the Fairtrade Foundation seven years ago he ‘jumped at the opportunity’.

The opportunity included asking uncomfortable questions of his audience, “How hard would you work if you didn’t know how much you would get in your pay packet?” (a dilemma faced by many in the developing world) and explained how this sometimes led to good people making bad decisions, ‘cheating to bring home the money’. Mr Alagiah repeatedly emphasised that his comments were not political statements but personal observations.

Fairtrade, he said, gave an alternative, a chance to say no to unscrupulous politicians, bad government or organised crime adding that Fairtrade benefits the farmers directly and that Fairtrade was especially good for women and families in the developing world. He spoke of the standards the Fairtrade Foundation applied to both sides of trade – the producers and the consumers – and of the social premium paid to communities. He also praised the amount of church-based Fairtrade work in the UK.

In the most moving of his recollections Mr Alagiah spoke of a visit he made to an African Fairtrade-linked community where, after all the official functions a woman said to him with obvious pride, “Would you like to see my home?”. Her two-room dwelling he felt was “like Buckingham Palace to her”. The woman had earned her dignity through Fairtrade.

For more information about the Fairtrade Foundation please see www.fairtrade.org.uk