On the 25th of March at 18:30 (CET) Kolping Youth Europe hosted its 2nd Kolping Talk with more than 30 participants from 13 different countries. Patrycja Kwapik and Magdalena Szczudło (Kolping Poland) were invited to share their experience from an international Erasmus+ project and talk about the topic “TATICO – Fair Trade Coffee from Honduras”.
After Magdalena Szczudło opened the event and introduced participants to the topic, everybody was invited to watch a short movie about coffee producers in Honduras. The interesting movie with a lot of beautiful captures of nature and people from Honduras was a great base for a discussion. Participants had a chance to see how the concept of fair trade looks in practice. Everyone was split into several breakout rooms to discuss the movie and the advantages of fair trade. These discussions were highly interesting as the participants of the Kolping Talk came not only from European countries who are consumers of fair trade products, but also from countries who are producing them such as Honduras, Cameroon and Nigeria. Some of the benefits of fair trade that participants presented were those on the financial side, but the social impact as well because it helps with building social capacities for the families of the producers, e.g. with regards to the education of children. We compared how producers benefit from fair trade, and how it affects consumers. On the one hand, it gives many chances for producers to cooperate, but also respects their hard work. On the other hand, consumers have to pay a higher price, but do something good for the local community of the producers and support their local economy. Magdalena Szczudło described this as a “win-win game, for both producers and consumers”.
At the end of the Kolping Talk, Patrycja Kwapik presented the manual ,,Model of youth leaders development for fair economy and education”. It is a toolkit that collects all the best practices from the fair trade sector. It contains information about fair trade in general, but also about job opportunities in the fair trade sector and a classification of key competences and how to develop them.
We want to thank everyone who participated, especially Patrycja and Magdalena. This is still a new format of KYE events, but It was a great opportunity for Kolping members from all around the world to connect and share ideas. Don’t forget to join us at our Kolping Virtual Apero on 22nd of April at 18:30 (CET), where we will exchange ideas, activities and in an informal way use the chance to have a chat with our Kolping friends.
The movie and the manual were developed as part of the international Erasmus+ project „COFFEE – cooperation for fair economy and education“ which was implemented by Kolping Poland, Langen Kaffee (Germany), Kolping Romania, Kolping Mexico and Kolping Honduras.
Grlica Golušin