6th International Fair Trade Towns Conference - Poznan, Poland 2012
2012-11-10 2012-11-11
Fair Trade Towns International Conference Poznan, Poland 2012
The 6th International Fair Trade Towns Conference was held in Poznan, that declared as the first Fair Trade Town in Poland as part of the conference and gave rise to the formation of the International Fair Trade Towns Steering Committee.
Following 2 days of an intensive exchange of experiences and ideas, the 6th International Fair Trade Towns Conference closed on Sunday, November 11th, with an invitation from Andreas Sørensen to join the 7th conference being prepared in Oslo next year. This year’s event was organised by the Polish Fair Trade Association - PFTA (the main responsible being Tadeusz Makulski) and by the City Hall of Poznań (Environmental Department), which welcomed the event, in collaboration with the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), Fairtrade International (FLO), the FIG Tree, ROPS and the Polish Fair Trade Coalition, and under the patronage of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Along with the organizers, the over 70 volunteers from the Aware&Fair project and the 2 Poznan’s Universities proved essential in ensuring a smooth and successful conference.
With a total of 130 participants (mostly representatives and campaigners from Fair Trade Towns (FTT) and/or Fair Trade Organisations) from 25 countries around the world, including remarkable representations from Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom and from some countries as far away as the Philippines, Japan, Brazil and USA, the 6th International Fair Trade Towns Conference was a clear success and an example to follow.
The long list of guest speakers included Ryszard Grobelny (Mayor of Poznań), Rudi Dalvai (WFTO), Harriet Lamb (CEO Fairtrade International), Filip Kaczmarek (Polish MEP), Linda Årlud (Fairtrade Sweden), Fr. Shay Cullen (PREDA, Philippines), Bruce Crowther (FTT Founder), Kamil Wyszkowski (UNDP), Sergi Corbalán (FTAO), Raquel Ferreira (Sebrae MG, Brasil), among many others.
The first day of the conference included several plenary presentations (namely regarding the Aware&Fair project, the impact of the international FTT as a grassroots movement for change, the work of PREDA in the Philippines, FTT in the South, the post-2015 ‘MDG[1] MDG – the UN Millennium Development Goals.
