Campaign start on World Food Day - 'Kieku L-ikel Jitkellem'

On the occasion of World Food Day, Koperattiva Kummerċ Ġust, the only Fair Trade organisation in Malta, is launching a campain with the theme of the right to food under the slogan “Kieku l-ikel Jitkellem”. This campaign is part of a larger project called Enlarging Fair in which KKĠ is participating, together with four other new EU member states. The project is coordinated by an Italian Fair Trade organisation and is co-financed by the EU.

KKĠ will not be working alone on this theme. It sought to involve other organisations, entities and individuals who are interested in participating in the campaign as a network. Among the organisations, NGOs or cooperatives which have joined the network there are Food First Malta, Friends of the Earth Malta, Greenhouse, Inizjamed, Moviment Graffitti, Slow Food Malta, Third World Group, Youth Alive Foundation and Żminijietna.

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The main aim of the “Kieku l-ikel Jitkellem” campaign is to raise awareness about world hunger and related environmental, social and economic issues and how we can make a difference to poor producers through our everyday choices and actions especially as consumers. The campaign will address various themes linked to the problem of world hunger such as:

§ The right and access to food;

§ The globalisation of the food market;

§ The industrial food chain;

§ The raw materials market (e.g. coffee and cocoa beans);

§ Volatile food prices, food subsidies and food dumping;

§ The situation of rural women in developing countries;

§ Food and intercultural education;

§ Genetically modified organisms, respect for biodiversity and free access to seeds;

§ The use of pesticides and their harmful effects;

§ The production of crops for food rather than for alternative energy.

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The major targets of the “Kieku l-ikel Jitkellem” campaign will be consumers and students in schools. More people need to recognise that the problems of poverty and hunger in the world today are not due to lack of food but due to lack of access to food.

Therefore in the coming months, KKĠ will be distributing educational material aimed at raising awareness on the themes linked to the “Kieku l-ikel Jitkellem” campaign. This material includes a set of ten postcards, each one containing information and messages in Maltese about Fair Trade, social justice, protection of the environment and local sustainability. KKĠ also has a documentary on DVD in English which was filmed in India and Sri Lanka. The short film features interviews with Vandana Shiva, world-renowned environmental leader and thinker as well as with growers of rice and herbs. This material will be distributed in secondary schools and during public activities organised by KKĠ or by other organisations taking part in the campaign. KKĠ will also be publishing a Consumers’ Guide so that consumers will be better informed about the food products they buy and how they can become more responsible consumers. The production of the postcards was sponsored by APS Bank.

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The campaign will reach its peak in May 2010 with Worldfest, the annual Fair Trade Festival which KKĠ has been organising for the past eight years.

More information about Koperattiva Kummerċ Ġust, L-Arka World Shop and the “Kieku l-ikel Jitkellem” campagn is available on the following websites:

www.l-arka.org u www.l-ikel.org

Angele Deguara and Nathalie Grima

Koperattiva Kummerċ Ġust

For the Full Version of the Press Release: http://www.l-ikel.org/pr-launch-english.doc

Il-Verzioni kollha tal-Kunferenza Stampa: http://www.l-ikel.org/pr-launch-malti.doc

Reference on the Time of Malta: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091017/local/consumers-urged-to-go-for-organic