Frijoles for Fairtrade Fortnight

|PIC1|Eating frijoles (Spanish for beans) and rice every day in Honduras gave Fairtrade campaigners Brenda and Gordon Wilkinson of Felbridge, East Grinstead, the idea for their fund-raising book, Recipes for Disaster... Relief and Development.

They are now encouraging people that run events during Fairtrade Fortnight, 25 February to 9 March, to buy their best-selling charity cookbook, or download a recipe from www.recipesfordisaster.org, then make Caribbean rice and bean stew - using Fairtrade-certified rice.

They say that this should encourage people to think about people living in poverty and show how Fairtrade is helping improve the lives of more than seven million farmers worldwide.

The Wilkinsons came up with the idea for the book on a study trip to Central America with Christian relief and development charity Tearfund.

Their aim is to raise money to help set up seed banks and irrigation projects for some of the world's poorest farmers and microfinance schemes to help craft workers develop Fairtrade businesses.

"Fairtrade has demonstrated its potential to help producers improve their livelihoods, strengthen their businesses and benefit their communities, but compared with what is needed in the poorer countries of the world, we've really only begun to make a dent in the struggle against poverty and unfair trade," said Fairtrade Foundation, Executive Director Harriet Lamb.

|PIC2|Mr Wilkinson added, "Our cookbook encourages people to use Fairtrade ingredients wherever possible and shows how Tearfund's partners overseas are bringing real hope and opportunity to some of the poorest communities."

Since its launch in June 2006, Recipes for Disaster has been one of the UK's best-selling charity cookbooks. "They've been selling like hot cakes" says Mrs Brenda, "and by the end of the year we had sold over 3,500 copies and raised more than £20,000 for Tearfund's work.

"Hopefully with sales in Fairtrade Fortnight, we'll get closer to our target of £25,000. People are especially keen to buy the book at £7 when they know that more than £6 from each sale goes direct to Tearfund."

Recipes for Disaster brings together a tasty collection of over 40 recipes from Argentina to Zambia, including Argentinean Empanadas, Liberian Chicken Casserole and Cambodian Sticky Rice and Mango.

Copies of Recipes for Disaster are available from www.recipesfordisaster.org