The End of the Line

Recently watched The End of the Line, which is currently available in the UK on More4 using  4 On Demand (The End of the Line – 4oD – Channel 4) and soon to be out on DVD.
It is an incredible story about the shocking decline in global fish stocks – sadly not a film about [...]

HOME – a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

I first saw the Earth from the Air photograph exhibition by Yann Arthus-Bertrand years ago at the Natural History Museum in London and it was, and still is, fantastic. His photography is breathtaking and inspirational – and the exhibition has always had at its core a goal of inspiring people to act on what they [...]

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk goes Fairtrade

Great to see the news this Fairtrade Fornight that from November this year Cadbury’s Dairy Milk will display the Fairtrade Mark: The Fairtrade Foundation, CadburyTV, Stop the Traffik and The Guardian… This really is a big achievement. When the bars hit the shops the value of Fairtrade chocolate sales in Britain will go from [...]

Accountability – Footsteps 76

Whilst in Zambia I helped put together a case study of the work we were doing in the run-up to elections with local communities and would-be MPs… since then it has taken on a life of it’s own through the power of the web and global networks… apparently it appeared in the briefing documents for [...]

Journey to justice – action tip

Ten years ago the global debt crisis campaign was thrust into the mainstream as thousands of people formed a big human chain in Birmingham – ten years on and the the anniversary is being marked to:

CELEBRATE ten years since the Birmingham human chain
DISCOVER the impact of debt cancellation so far
DEMAND a lasting solution to the [...]

Making her traffickers pay

A few weeks ago I mentioned I’d be leading an Encounter team to Bangladesh in October to see the work of the Church of Bangladesh Social Development Programme (CBSDP), who are involved in highlighting the issues of human trafficking…
News last week on the CMS website shares the story of Halima, who was sold by her [...]

Zambia’s lost copper wealth – action tip

It’s been a while, but here is another action tip…
Having lived in the Copperbelt in Zambia we know that one of the central questions about Zambia is always: why is this once middle-income country so poor, when it is so rich – £2bn worth extracted from its mines last year – in copper?
As things are [...]

Black Gold Movie – action tip

A new documentary film about the impact of the coffee trade called Black Gold, is about to be released, so I am making it an action tip.
The film exposes the injustices of the international coffee trade industry by following the journey of Tadesse Meskela, General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co. in Ethiopia, [...]

stop vulture funds – action tip

Yesterday the vulture fund, Donegal International, that has been targeting Zambia for $55 million (we have talked about it before) was told it will only get $15.4 million. The fact Zambia has to pay anything to this company is still too much, but it is progress! The judge back in February found Donegal’s full claim [...]

the slave tree – action tip

I have mentioned Freedom Day before. Recently, anticipating that this day to mark the end of slavery is just around the corner (25th March), we went in search for the famous slave tree in Ndola town and a local history lesson.
Swahili slave-traders used to frequent the area around the tree – meeting under the shade [...]