Oxfam and several other fair trade-organisations organised coffee tables all over Flanders to celebrate the World Fair Trade Day. The combined length of the tables at different locations was meant to exceed 2015 meters (to remind people of the U.N. millennium development goals for 2015), but eventually reached over 3000 meters.
The fair trade organisations distributed a petition addressed to European commissioners for Trade Peter Mandelson and commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel, in which they asked for:
- Market regulations to compensate the small farmers for the instabilities in the natural resource prices
- Access to information about the coffee market
- The right for networks of small farmers in Africa to join negotiations.
Hundreds of volunteers across Flanders lured people to the tables with free fair trade coffee, hot chocolate and cake. The action came at the end of a month were films and debates brought the situation of small coffee farmers in Africa under the attention.
Sources
External links
- The Longest Table - event homepage (Dutch)
Source & Attribution
Originally published by Wikinews on May 12, 2007. Original author: Wikinews.
CC BY 2.5. Photograph: People gathered in Leuven for a coffee table of 100 meters. Photo: Steven Fruitsmaak Own work Source file. CC BY 2.5. CC BY 2.5.
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