Fairtrade Tea and Coffee Evening for ActionAid

We held a Manchester Peacemaker Circle evening tonight to connect with the annual ActionAid Fairtrade Coffee and Tea Day, which in turn is part of the wider Fairtrade Fortnight. ActionAid are a wonderful international charity working in grassroots global development and political campaigning for the rights of the poor and marginalised around the world.

ActionAid sent us some free teabags, coffee and chocolate, and people brought along biscuits and home-made cakes... there was lots of sweet food!

We watched 3 short videos on ActionAid's work with women infected with HIV/AIDS. We also watched a short film on a rural education-drama project informing locals about AIDS and the need to treat those infected as human beings still (from the bonus section of the movie DVD of 'The Constant Gardener'). Then we held an interesting Council Circle on our responses and thoughts on what we'd seen.

After that we had more tea and cakes... Jules played guitar and sang some of her compositions for us, and Zang played also. We ended by listening to latino music and taking photos!

A collection was made for donations to go towards ActionAid, and people gave generously.

Thankyou to all who came, and I hope others can join us in the future... anyone is invited to arrange circle events for causes they believe in too!

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