The Million Lives Changed Blog

A High School in Spalding is celebrating after gaining Fairtrade status. The school is believed to be the first in the town to gain the accolade. Pupils at the school were asked to promote Fairtrade, incorporate it into its curriculum, and take action for Fairtrade in the community.

It is great to hear about children getting involved in fair trade.  If you start at a young age you are much more likely to continue to care about where your products come from as you get older. 

This reminds me of something Martin Luther King once said -

"It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality."

Perhaps it is only now that we truly see we are interrelated and care about each other. I am hopeful about the future as long as we continue educating ourselves and our children about the world we live in.

Nina