Called “The happiest days of your life”, it’s been done by Ben Ingham for Save the Children, and explores what it means for children to play and enjoy treats in various countries across the world. To say that this image (taken in March 04 in Serbia) is an arresting one to greet you over a Saturday lunchtime coffee is today’s biggest understatement…
Profound. Moving. Deeply troubling.
http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/exhibition/
by Ben Ingham
6 comments:
...and apologies for the mutliple drafts on and off the blog to get this image to upload... sorry :-(
Fantastic link and info Laura, but it may not look as bad (or as shocking) as one may think, for the gun is a toy one, and not real.
...Lev
1. I think that website might have a slight ideological bias against fair trade.
2. No mention of the reason why so many people are producing coffee and the world market has slumped: insitutions such as the IMF and World Bank forced them to switch over to such exportable commodities to repay their debts. Personally I'd like to see the debts written off and farmers encouraged to grow food for people living in their own country.
3. Fair trade is not an end in itslef. Justice in world trade (including an end to western protectionism and the freedom for smaller and developig countries to protect their industires in the growth stages) is the aim. But fair trade does enable farmers to send their children to school, which is an investment in the countries' futures. And buy medicine for them, which may enable them to stay alive.
Hello Alex, nice to see you've found our blog.
I've read your article, and your arguments, and they just don't make sense.
If a non-fair trade coffee producer finds his company competing with an oversuppling market, the solution for him isn't to campaign against the fair-trade market, but to either:
1. Switch markets, possibly entering the fair-trade market.
2. Get out of the market! As you suggest, this should be done, and for the struggling coffee producers, I should imagine it is done on a regular basis. But why on earth would you want the richer more successful fairly-traded producers to exit the market when they're doing so much good!?!?!
You suggest that the fair-trade market keeps the entire coffee market over supplied, perhaps this is true, but isn't it a case of two sub-markets within one?
And if it is true, why pick on the fairly traded coffee, and not the non-fairly traded coffee producers?
So in short: What *are* you on about man? It sounds to me that you're biased against socially progressive economic projects such as fair trade. A true disciple of Adam Smith?
...Lev
Just to clarify...
>What *are* you on about man?
Lev - Alex could be male or female. Ahem.
Alex - ...and I think he meant all of that in a loving, non-judgemental liberal Christian way. ;-)
>Alex - ...and I think he meant
>all of that in a loving, non-
>judgemental liberal Christian
>way. ;-)
Apologies if I have you gender wrong Alex, and sorry if my question appears harsh, erm... trouble with written word is it can sometimes sound different to what's in my head when I write it. So errr, yeah, rock on!
...Lev
Post a Comment