Dear Fair Trade Town..

September 22, 2017

An invite to Fair Trade Towns across the world from the people of Fair Trade Turnhout, Belgium…

In 2016, the Belgian Trade for Development Centre launched the idea to make Belgium a Fair Trade Nation by 2020. Their aim is to have all Belgians know, buy, taste, smell, breath Fair Trade. In summary, they want Fair Trade to become a part of the Belgian DNA.

4 towns in the region of Turnhout (Beerse, Oud-Turnhout, Turnhout and Vosselaar  – in the Northern part of Belgium) would like to present an appeal to all Fair Trade Towns  worldwide to take part in an action, with the aim to get Fair Trade Towns closer to each other and to inspire each other. In this way, they also hope to convince the inhabitants of all those towns around the world to buy Fair Trade!

We’re going to send postcards with “fair greetings”. Each participating Fair Trade Town – anywhere in the world –  can receive a postcard from inhabitants from the region of Turnhout.

From the 4th of October, we are going to install “a greeting box” on different locations/activities, where people can find all the postcards.  Inhabitants from around Turnhout can then choose a postcard from a specific, participating Fair Trade Town and can send “fair greetings”  to that town on the postcard. Inhabitants can choose what they want to write on the card: they can just send greetings, but also send an idea to the town or ask a question. The aim of this campaign is to let citizens know that there are Fair Trade Towns all over the world and that a lot of cities take action to encourage their citizens to buy Fair Trade. By sharing ideas and contact details on the postcard, we can inspire each other and  bring Fair Trade Towns in contact with each other.

All Fair Trade Towns participating this project will receive  a bundle of  postcards from other Fair Trade Towns that are participating.

Are you an active Fair Trade Town? Would you like to participate?
There are 3 things needed to take part in this campaign:

Send  a great picture (digital, preferably high resolution) of a typical fair trade image from your town, for example of a volunteer group, of your Fair Trade shop or perhaps an award that you might hand out to local fair trade businesses.

On the back of the postcard, place a story (in one sentence) of how your town raises awareness about fair trade, for example, “Every year, we organise a Fair Trade breakfast”.
Include the email address of the contact person (civil servant or volunteer) who is responsible for the Fair Trade movement in the town.