Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 March 2005 13:28:29
One of the things about the conference that made me feel most at home was the social action/trade justice aspect of it - I've not been involved in things like trade justice for very long - not more than 5 years certainly, as I didn't really understand what the jubilee 2000 campaign was all about, but since I grew to understand it I have enjoyed campaigning and learning more about it.
One of the highlights of the weekend was the trade game we played on the first night. Each team had some natural resources (paper) and instructions on how to make saleable goods...and some other helpful things. The problem was that some teams had more than others. In order to trade you had to have certain things to make salable goods, but some countries (mine was one of them) couldn't afford them. So there was nothing we could do (apart from attempting to gate crash a meeting and shouting make poverty history). Until fairly near the end of the game 4 countries including the two poorest formed a coopretive, pooled money, resources and labour. In the end we came joint second.