Click through our events calendar to find out about upcoming events and activities all around WFTO and the Fair Trade sector.

WFTO-Europe 2023 Biennial Conference report

On 11-13 June 2023 WFTO-Europe held its first Biennial Conference since the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020. The conference was hosted by the member Les Jardins de Gaïa at their headquarters in Wittisheim just outside Strasbourg. Here, members engaged in conversations and workshops in Les Jardins de Gaïa’s tea house while enjoying their delicious and fair teas and savouring Alsace delicacies during lunch and dinner. Part of the conference also took place at a hub for Social and Solidarity Economy organisations in Strasbourg, Kaleidoscoop, where we met and discussed with local organisations advocating for Fair Trade and social economy. The conference ended with a meeting with MEPs in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, discussing how EU regulation could potentially help support and boost Fair Trade in Europe – and by extension support producers in the Global South as well as in the North.

You can find more details about the conference in the conference report here.

You can also find the minutes of the AGM held during the conference here.

And finally, here you can find the Interim Strategic Plan adopted during the AGM covering our work until the AGM of 2025.

Previous events:

School Meals and Inclusivity: A Question of Price?

On 17th November, 2022, WFTO-Europe and the FTAO co-organised a webinar looking into the issues of inclusivity in school meals and covering best practice from cities, civil society and private actors in different countries.

School meals are an important part of children’s daily life with big significance for their health, their education as well as their social life. School meals also make up a big public procurement item and in recent years there has been a greater focus on how it can contribute better to achieve sustainability standards.

Virginia Pignata, graduate of political science and activist on sustainable and inclusive food systems, moderated the plenary together with Professor at Law, Tomaso Ferrando, at Institute of Development Policy (IOB) at University of Antwerp. Speakers included Claudia Paltrinieri, Food Insider (Italy), Jatta Makkula, national coordinator of the Fair Trade Towns network in Finland, Lisa Hermann, head of campaigning & engagement at Fairtrade Deutschland (Germany), Estelle Compere-Leroy, project manager of Manger Demain (Wallonie, Belgium), and Astrid Dahl from Municipality of Copenhagen (Denmark).

See the original invite here.

Read here the follow-up notes with points from speakers and participants.

 

A Fair and Sustainable Business Model is Possible!

A Fair and Sustainable Business Model is Possible! This is the positive and encouraging message we wanted to deliver at our event, organized in the framework of the Belgian Fair Trade Week funded by Enabel, in collaboration with the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, Fair Trade Belgium, Oxfam MdM and Belgian Fair Trade Federation. We invited business actors, government officials, scholars, students and passionate individuals to discuss the challenges faced by sustainable, ethical and social enterprises in their daily business and the possible solutions that could help them overcoming these obstacles. The objective of the event was to show that an alternative business model is perfectly viable if one invests enough passion, values and determination in the project.

Click here to further read about it.

 

Connect & Act Members’ Meeting and Public Event

On 6th and 7th June we hosted our “Connect & Act” meeting in Brussels, followed by the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in the afternoon of the 7th. The event was funded by the European Commission via the Trade Fair Live Fair project and gathered more than 60 people from 13 different European countries. In the morning of the first day we were additionally joined by members of like-minded movements for the public event “The role of mission-led business models in pursuing global social and environmental justice”.

Click here to get some further information on our event, to read the conference report and to click through some pictures of the meeting.

 

 

 

 

 

World Fair Trade Day 2019

On the second Saturday of May we celebrated World Fair Trade Day 2019 by putting in the spotlight innovations for people and planet. Learn more about the campaign and find out how Fair Trade innovates in our WFT-Day video.

 

 

 

 

 

International Women’s Day

Every year on March 8th, we celebrate International Women’s Day. In 2019 WFTO-Europe launched a video putting in the spotlight women leaders in Fair Trade enterprises. Watch the video here.

Other Previous Events:

• October 2017: Business for a Fair World
• WFTO Biennial Conference 2017 in Delhi
• Belgian Fair Trade Week 2015 – WFTO-Europe Event: “Wear Your Ideas!” Who is behind our clothes?
• Anti-Poverty Week 2015
• 2015 World Fair Trade Week (Milan, Italy)

Let us know about your events!