Mini Vinnies

In our meeting on Thursday, 14 March, Mini Vinnies unanimously voted to run an Ethical Easter Egg Raffle this term. Each Mini Vinnie also wrote down how they can contribute their talents to the Mini Vinnies Team. There were some excellent ideas submitted about what we might do this year to help others.

Ethical Easter Egg Raffle

The aim of the Ethical Easter Egg Raffle is to raise awareness of the global social justice issue of child labour and slavery in the chocolate industry, particularly in West Africa where the majority of the world’s cocoa production occurs. It is disturbing to realise the Easter Eggs we are sharing, eating and enjoying with our family and friends has had child exploitation involved in the production of them. Our luxury items at bargain prices are coming at great cost to lives of people on the other side of the world.

A report on child labour in West African cocoa growing areas, estimated that in 2013–14 the industry used more than 2 million child labourers. It was common for children to be trafficked into cocoa bean farms and subjected to unfair and exploitative treatment. https://www.choice.com.au/food-and-drink/sweets/chocolate/articles/ethical-easter-eggs This situation is exacerbated by poverty and unfair trade conditions whereby farmers are not paid sufficiently for their cocoa beans.

There is a push for change for the better. Fairtrade, UTZ Certified and Rainforest Alliance are three certification bodies in Australia who identify companies using ethically sourced cocoa beans from farmers engaging in good labour practices and sustainable farming methods.

   

A number of organisations are doing great work in advocating for better practices in the chocolate industry:

Stop the Traffik Australia and Baptist World Aid Australia have produced an excellent report on this topic titled ‘A Matter of Taste’ which can be viewed at

http://acrath.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/A-Matter-of-Taste-2017-Full-version.pdf

ACRATH (Australian Catholic Religious against Trafficking in Humans) advocate strongly and have great resources:

https://acrath.org.au/take-action/slavery-free-easter-chocolate/

What can we do?

• Choose chocolate with Fairtrade, UTZ or Rainforest Alliance certification.
• Advocate by writing letters to:
  - chocolate producers requesting they work towards 100% ethically sourced cocoa. (Worthy of mention is Nestle, the first company in Australia to achieve 100% ethically sourced cocoa for their chocolate bar range.)
  - retailers requesting they stock 100% certified chocolate. (Haighs entire Easter Egg range are certified against human trafficking).
• Don’t buy Cadbury Easter Eggs
  Disappointingly, Cadbury Australia, one of our best known chocolate brands, have no ethically sourced Easter Eggs available to purchase this year. Mini Vinnies have written letters of petition to Cadbury each year since 2015 requesting they make Easter Eggs with ethically sourced chocolate. Our response last year was “Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming number of requests we receive from students and teachers we regret that we’re unable to respond to individual questions.”

Listed below are Easter Eggs that are free from trafficked labour:

• Aldi's UTZ Certified Dairy Fine, Choceur, Moser Roth and Specially Selected Easter chocolate ranges.
• Chocolatier Australia's Fairtrade milk and dark chocolate available through Coles, Woolworths, David Jones and other chocolate suppliers.
• Coles also has a range of branded UTZ, Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance-certified Easter chocolates.
• The Haigh's Chocolate-made Easter egg range is UTZ Certified.
• Devine chocolate eggs and bunnies are Fairtrade certified, and are available through IGA, other selected stores and online.

A note will be sent home this week to families of Mini Vinnies requesting donations of ethical Easter Eggs. Raffle Tickets will be sold before and after school on the playground in Week 10 (1 ticket for 50 cents or 3 tickets for a dollar). Ethical Easter Eggs can be donated to the School Office until Tuesday 9 April (Week 10) and the raffle will be drawn on Thursday, 11 April.

Our fundraising will go towards the Kitenden Preschool Project, to support a community in Tanzania, Africa that has been struggling due to drought and modernisation which our school has sponsored for the past five years. (More detail about this project will be provided in the next More News.)

Feel welcome to visit or contact me on 6249 8869 or send an email to sonja.mingay@cg.catholic.edu.au .

Sonja Mingay
School Chaplain

Work hours: Thu 11am-3pm, Fri 9am-3pm