The human vending machine

David Lawson tells us how he got his school behind Fairtrade Fortnight with some creative stunts.

''We took the advice from People and Planet a little too seriously and built a Human Vending Machine out of plywood.'' ''We also managed to persuade our lovely kitchen manager to switch off the vending machines for two days and he gave us the kitchen counter for the week.'' David's friend models the human vending machine.

As a fair trade disciple, I wanted to do something for Fairtrade Fortnight. Conveniently, I happen to be in charge of my school's People and Planet group, and my friends needed no persuading to decide we were going to organise some 'spectacular' events to raise awareness about fair trade.

The first thing to do was to do assemblies to each year group, explaining to everyone else why fair trade mattered. So I gathered together all the classical arguments for fair trade: ensuring the farmer gets a fair and stable price so that they can pay for healthcare, education for his family and plan for the future; giving greater respect for the environment; and ensuring that the farmer gets a social premium. To get our message across we played the 'chocolate game' during the assemblies.

We got six volunteers from the audience, who were given props and signs showing who they were, such as the cocoa farmer with the sunhat and the civil servant with the tie. I would then show how each £1 spent on conventional chocolate is usually apportioned, by splitting up a chocolate bar between the participants, with a meagre block of chocolate left over for the cocoa farmer (who gets approximately 3p for every pound spent). This left us in a perfect position to explain, to our unusually attentive audience, what fair trade is and how it deals with this unfair distribution - and give us an excuse to flourish our massive inflatable Fairtrade banana.

Selling Fairtrade products in style
Step 2 of our plan was to sell Fairtrade products during the second week each break time. To generate interest, we took advice from People and Planet a little too seriously and built a human vending machine out of plywood - complete with real sloping shelves. We bought a wide variety of products from Suma, a wholesaler, with probably too much emphasis on healthy food (but then again my mum was paying!). We also managed to persuade our lovely kitchen manager to switch off the vending machines for two days and he gave us the kitchen counter for the week.

All this helped us sell a reasonable amount of produce during the week. Though I was disappointed that a lot of people went back to the vending machines when they were switched back on.

So was it worthwhile?
Of course it was. Though challenging people's diets will have to wait for another day, we managed to raise awareness about a very important issue. We got our local paper to give us coverage, and hopefully we've encouraged people to make Fairtrade their habit. And most importantly, these events were the launch pad for our school to get Fairtrade status, which has been enthusiastically backed by our Headmistress and the kitchen manager.

After all, people are not in the habit of buying Fairtrade and, as Mark Twain said: "Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."