A huge thank you to everyone who supported ActionAid’s 24-Hour Tea & Coffee Break on Friday 29 February 2008.  Thousands of people across the UK helped make this event a huge success by holding fair trade tea and coffee mornings and everything from raffles to bring and buy sales.  The funds you have raised will be put to good use in our crucial work with poor farmers around the world, helping to find lasting solutions to poverty.

If you haven’t sent in the money you raised yet, then don’t forget to include the payment form which was enclosed in your fundraising pack. This will help us put your donations to work immediately, so if you have lost your form or require another click here or call us now on +44(0)1460 238 047.

Photo: Cafédirect's direct and personal relationship with their growers ensures that they receive the pick of the crop.

Cafédirect would like to wish good luck to everyone involved in the 24 hour tea and coffee break.

We hope that your event is a success and that you and your friends and family enjoy our delicious coffee and tea.

As we are right in the middle of Fairtrade Fortnight, it is a great time to campaign for trade justice and a fairer price for smallholder farmers.

Download a Campaign Kit from our website to see how you can help. Everyone who has joined Friends of Cafédirect can also request a DVD and some free samples of our products for their campaigns.

Thank you!

Cafédirect

www.cafedirect.co.uk 

Cafédirect reinvests on average 60% of their annual profits into their growers’ businesses and communities. This funds training and development programmes to continually improve their products, whilst empowering their growers to build a brighter, sustainable future.

Fatima Lopez is Head Coffee Taster at PRODECOOP, one of Cafédirect’s grower partners in Nicaragua. Her family comes from a coffee farming background and she was one of the first people to participate in a three-year coffee tasting course on a PRODECOOP scholarship.

Fatima turned out to be a natural and, since starting out as a trainee in 2002 has now risen to the position of Head Coffee Taster.

“Through our long-term relationship with Cafédirect we invested in coffee quality,” said Fatima, “The co-op is training young people to work in coffee. I am now the head coffee taster. This means I taste the coffees to check the quality and run a training programme for young people. It’s creating opportunities for the next generation, like me.”

PRODECOOP contribute their delicious coffee beans to ten Cafédirect products, including Classic Blend freeze dried instant coffee, Organic Decaffeinated freeze dried coffee, and the Medium and Rich roast and ground blends.

To read more about Cafédirect’s products, Fatima and Cafédirect’s other grower partners and visit their website today: www.cafedirect.co.uk

As well as raising vital funds to support our work, thousands of Tea & Coffee Breakers across the UK will be encouraging those who attend their events to pledge their loyalty to workers who pay the real price for the cheap goods in our supermarkets.



Check out ActionAid's loylaty zone now – it offers you the chance to earn loyalty points every time you visit, just like a supermarket loyalty card.

The cast of Britain’s favourite soap have joined together for a cuppa on the cobbles ahead of ActionAid’s 24 Hour Tea and Coffee Break on Friday 29 February. Taking a break from filming, the Coronation Street stars held their own fair-trade tea and coffee break to draw attention to the unfair conditions suffered by farmers in the developing world.

If you’re not already one of the thousands joining them to be part of 24 Hour Tea & Coffee Break, you can still sign up now!

Once again our friends at Divine are lending their support to 24 Hour Tea & Coffee Break. Divine, the Heavenly Chocolate with a Heart, is made with the best Fairtrade cocoa, supplied by the Ghanaian farmers who co-own the company. It's full of natural ingredients and no artificial flavours or additives, so the real chocolate flavour comes through. A truly Divine experience.

Juliana Fremah lives in Amankwatia village. She is a cocoa farmer with 12 acres of cocoa trees, and a member of the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative, which owns a third of The Day Chocolate Company in the UK. She joined Kuapa Kokoo in 2000, and is very clear about what joining has meant to her.

"Getting together to form a Women's Group, which Kuapa encourages us to do, meant we could get a Kuapa Credit loan, and use the money to plant secondary crops like Okro and Cassava. Money from these crops helps in between cocoa harvests. Since joining Kuapa we have been able to build our own house."

For stockists and lots more information about Divine please visit www.divinechocolate.com