INTRODUCTION
I would like to introduce you to another leading fairtrade pioneer and champion of the fairtrade movement of the United Kingdom, Ms Christina Longden.
Christina with her beautiful daughter Ruby
Christina is a humanitarian, an accomplished author and Director (Fundraising/Information) at The Lorna Young Foundation.
Christina has a background in community based project development and management.
She has worked as a consultant in social housing, the voluntary sector and has provided training services to the charity sector at Whitehall.
She has also spent many years working with marginalised communities in Southern Africa where she compiled and edited two oral books and conducted fund raising for rights and development programmes.
Christina is an integral part of my support network in the United Kingdom.
I am privileged to know her as a dear friend, supporter and leading fairtrade campaigner.
The Lorna Young Foundation (LYF) is an inspirational organisation and charity located Huddersfield, United Kingdom.
It was established with funding from Café Direct in memory of pioneer and fair trade campaigner Lorna Young, 2003.
Lorna shared the belief that producers in developing countries can lift themselves out of poverty – 'they just need help to gain better commercial knowledge and access to markets.'
The Lorna Young Foundation was established in 2003 in memory of the late Lorna Young, a pioneer of fair trade in the United Kingdom.
Cocoa farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The Lorna Young Foundation shares Lorna’s belief that producers in developing countries can lift themselves out of poverty – they just need help to gain better commercial knowledge and access to markets.
WATCH: CHRISTINA LONGDEN TALK ABOUT THE LORNA YOUNG FOUNDATION
The khutbah (sermon) below was written by the Imam of the Altrincham Muslim Association, Altrincham, United Kingdom and was addressed to the congregation during Ramadhan 2013.
I am grateful to the Imam who wrote a khutbah about fair trade, credited my work in Dubai and talked about The Lorna Young Foundation.
NOTE THIS SECTION IS FROM THE IMAM/ WORSHIP LEADER
We praise and thank Allah(swt) for giving us the opportunity to witness another Ramadan.
In this newsletter, and in the spirit of Ramadan, we will try to shed a slightly different light on the concept of giving and of charity.
Zakat is one of the fundamental foundations of our beautiful religion but helping others out of their predicament is not just about giving in charity and in Zakat.
As the old Chinese proverb says;
'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'
This concept is not new to Islam and has already been endorsed by our beloved Prophet(saaws) when he helped a poor man by getting him to invest in an axe and work collecting wood for a living.
This man worked his way out of poverty. But an important part of this story from the Seerah that does not readily come across is the fact that the Sahabah bought the wood at a fair price.
The concept of Fair trade and for Muslims to ‘Do More than just Zakat’ are therefore fundamentals of our Islam.'
In a recent article {http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/sabeena-ahmeds-fair-trade-mission} we read about sister Sabeena Ahmed's fair trade mission.
What followed next was months of research into the World Fair Trade Organisation, to which she applied for associate membership. Last year, she founded The Little Fair Trade Shop after moving to Dubai.
Two years ago, our amazing mosque and community working with the Lorna Young Foundation championed a local social enterprise ‘the Oromo Coffee Company’ established by Muslim and Christian Oromo Ethiopian refugees who have suffered from horrendous persecution and who settled in Manchester.
However, our involvement did not materialise into further activities and our community has not embraced the concept of “Fair Trading” on a larger scale.
The Lorna Young Foundation (LYF) is a little northern-based ‘fairer and ethical trading’ charity that works to help desperately poor producers in developing countries to get a fair price for their work and for their produce.
Their research has found that Muslim communities in the UK do not have an instinctive affinity with Ethical Trading Businesses which is at odds with Islam.
The Holy Quran speaks in such amazing volume and detail about Fair Business practices! More so than so many other issues!
We all like to buy cheap things of course – to get a bargain – but Allah teaches us to think far beyond this!
Colleagues and volunteers at the Lorna Young Foundation come from very different backgrounds and faith groups – and yet all involved believe in going beyond charity.
They work together to create innovative projects that focus on help-ups, not on ‘handouts’.
They do this through supporting poor producers in developing countries to get more value from what they grow; but also through working with marginalised communities in the UK, helping them through to build skills and income through ethical trade and enterprise.
The Lorna Young Foundation is a trade justice charity – based in west Yorkshire but operating ‘at home and abroad’.
Our friends try to explain some of the gross inequalities in the current trading system (especially in commodities) and to provide real and long-lasting solutions to global poverty through promoting ethical (equitable) enterprise.
Below are some examples of their work and some suggestions for Zakat this Ramadan.
Altrincham mosque was the first organisation to hold an Oromo Coffee Company (OCC) event.
The Oromo Coffee Company was set up by the LYF to provide Muslim and Christian Oromo refugees with opportunities to get work and training, to generate income and to restore a sense of pride.
The LYF works closely with Ethiopian smallholder coffee farmers and we supported the Oromos to set up their own community-owned fair trade coffee company.
The Oromos live across Greater Manchester and very much need friendly faces and groups to buy their extremely high quality coffee.
Inspired by the OCC, the LYF began to work with young people from west Yorkshire – youth from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, who would not normally ‘mix’ with each other; who may not be the highest academic achievers but who had a great drive and sense of enterprise.
Our LYF friends helped them to set up their own ethical enterprise groups and their first big organised “UK’s first Fair Trade Eid party” which attracted over 150 members of the local Muslim community!
Working with the youth enterprises, they sourced their own fairly traded rice tea, coffee and chocolate and this led to setting up their own social enterprise – ‘Not Just A Trading Company.’
They have now gone on to work with a wide range of groups in communities and schools/colleges – young people, older people, unemployed people and refugees.
Poor farmers overseas are often at the mercy of middlemen who take much of the profit within the supply chain.
The LYF uses a simple, very cost effective and extremely empowering tool to provide the farmers with the information that they need to engage in the supply chain in a more equitable way.
Their ‘Radio Extension project’ was piloted with coffee smallholders in Kenya; they broadcast a live weekly radio programme in Kenya which now has over 4m listeners.
Every week poor farmers text in questions about coffee farming, which are then answered the following week by a panel of experts.
As the we all embark on a new Ramadhan please do think about some of these ideas in order to help people both at home and overseas through ‘trade and not aid’:
• Setting up your own ‘Not Just An Ethical Enterprise’ group at a community group/School/College etc.(and in doing so, also raising money for your own cause or group through the sale of the products?) www.notjustawebsite.org.uk
(N.B -The OCC project sadly ended 2016).
Brothers and sisters, our community has been, and has always been, very generous.
We now need to think “beyond giving” and beyond being generous in the traditional sense of charity.
We now need to think as well of “help ups” and not only “hand outs”.
This change will inevitably mean that some of what we buy will be more expensive.
Ramadan is an excellent opportunity for us to think “Fair” and to buy “Fair”.
But this will only happen if we as Muslim families embrace the concept of being charitable in the way we buy.
After all, the concept of fair trade lies at the heart of Islam.
Further Reading and Links
This month my right shoulder is still very painful and I have struggled to record this vlog and type this blog.
This month I supported fairtrade fortnight 2024 and celebrated Fairtrade's 30th Anniversary.
Here is my Easy Fairtrade Cocoa and Fairtrade Bananas Recipe which I baked for Fairtrade Fortnight 2024.
I have tried my best to translate this recipe in Urdu.
یہ ہے میری ایزی فیئرٹریڈ کوکو اور فیئر ٹریڈ کیلے کی ترکیب جسے میں نے فیئر ٹریڈ فورٹ نائٹ 2024 کے لیے پکایا تھا۔
میں نے اس ترکیب کا اردو میں ترجمہ کرنے کی پوری کوشش کی ہے۔
This month I supported fairtrade fortnight 2024 and celebrated Fairtrade's 30th Anniversary.
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I'm Sabeena Ahmed owner and creator of The Little Fair Trade Shop. I've been an individual associate member of the World Fair Trade Organization since 2011 and together with my artisans I bring you a bespoke collection of ethically sourced fashion & gifts.
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