FairTrade Event In NCIC

Hi all,

We were delighted and privileged to welcome a Fairtrade Rose flower producer from Kenya. This event was organised collectively with the Centre for Global Education, the Fairtrade Foundation and   three local schools and we were delighted that we were able to host this event in our school.

Everyone who attended were inspired and   enthused about Fairtrade after listening to Joseph Kibuta from Panda Flowers, Kenya and how Fairtrade is helping support and develop their communities in so many ways.  These included education, healthcare, transport and housing projects to name a few.  The schools who attended also shared the good practice that they are involved in within each of their schools and this was so inspirational and motivating for the pupils as they received other ideas of how they could develop and progress their aims to achieve the Fair Trade Schools award.

Kate from the Fairtrade Foundation also congratulated representatives from 9F who did so well in the Traidcraft competition on how well they had done in the Snack attack competition.

The pupils got involved with making the refreshments and they had made Fairtrade Banana and Chocolate Chip Muffins.  The recipe is below if you want to try it.  The muffins all went so I think that is a good enough endorsement of their taste and quality!

We also had Fairtrade bananas and Fairtrade chocolate fountain which also went down a treat!

Marks and Spencer donated some Fairtrade Chocolate Chip cookies which were yummy as well. Thank you for the donation – it was appreciated!

Fair Trade Banana and Chocolate Chip muffins

Ingredients

1 large egg

40 ml cooking oil

40 ml milk

3 mashed ripe bananas (fair Trade)

250 g flour

125 g granulated sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

100 g chocolate chips (fair trade)

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C (gas mk 6, 400°F).

Place the egg, oil, mashed bananas and milk in a large mixing bowl and beat together.

In another bowl place the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and chocolate chips and mix.  Pour in the liquid into the dry mix and stir until just blended.

Line a muffin tray with paper muffin cases, and then fill each case to just below the top with the muffin mixture.  Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes. They are cooked when a skewer inserted into one and then removed comes out clean (apart from any chocolate!).

Well that is all for now - I hope you enjoy the muffins if you try them!

Will update soon.

Final Visit to the Brook Residential Home for the year.

Last Monday we had our final visit of the year to the Brook and we had a celebration event to celebrate the success of the garden with the residents.  The lettuces were ready to pull and the potatoes are growing well.  They should be ready in September so we will keep in touch with them and see how they tasted. 

Unfortunately, the greenhouse that had been donated to them got destroyed in the recent storm and they had to give the courgettes and tomato plants to family members of the residents who had greenhouses.  These things happen,  however they are still enjoying going out and watering the plants that are growing.

The home is now actively recycling their paper in the paper bin which was one of the presentations that the children had given to the residents earlier in the project so this has been another effect of the project.

All in all, the benefit to the children and elderly residents was most evident in the fact that they were all spending time together.  This experience has indeed had some long lasting effects on all involved and the pupils involved all felt that their self-confidence has increased since embarking on this project.

We hope that we will continue this in the Spring term of next year. 

Here is a photo below of the pupils and residents enjoying the sunshine in the garden.

Will update with more info soon!