Christian Aid has a new logo. It was designed by Johnson Banks, who, as an aside, have a great website. It uses Flash or something I think so may not work if your computer is old and rubbish. I particularly like the ‘work tree’ section showing projects they have done over the years. You will like it if graphic design is your thing.

Hopefully the new ‘envelope’ label will be good for Christian Aid. I think it will, though on one poster I had through the post they were relying on the shape and style of the logo alone rather than having ‘Christian Aid’ on it, which I think is a mistake. Call me old fashioned, but putting the name on everything you do is a good idea.

I think I need a new logo. Or in fact a logo, full stop. The problem is that cartoons, whilst good for some things are often not great for logos. But then a stylish logo in a modern font may not get across what I am about. At the moment I just use CartoonChurch.com in Arial Black for most things as Arial Black is the boldest typeface one gets as a default in web browsers and things. But something more visual would be good.

Sorry if I’m rambling a bit. I blame my teeth.

Update: Favicon made into a logo.

Not that good really, but it was worth trying.

Posted by Dave at 7:26 pm on March 15, 2006 and filed under Art, Design, Make Poverty History.

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Another Fairtrade cartoon – once again no charge for using this if it is for a display promoting Fairtrade products or Fairtrade Fortnight. You can grab a high resolution version here.

See also my other, not so funny Fairtrade cartoon.

Feel free to post either of these Fairtrade cartoons on your blog if you are posting about Fairtrade Fortnight (6-19th of March). A link back here would be great.

Posted by Dave at 12:43 pm on March 3, 2006 and filed under Cartoons, Fair Trade, Make Poverty History.

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With Fairtrade Fortnight about to start (6-19th of March) I have published this Fairtrade cartoon on the main site. It originally appeared in the ‘Make Poverty History’ book I illustrated last year.

If you’re doing a display or article promoting Fairtrade and would like to use it then please go ahead. For all other uses see the licence pages as per usual.

See also my other, slightly funnier Fairtrade cartoon.

Posted by Dave at 9:45 am on March 3, 2006 and filed under Cartoons, Fair Trade, Make Poverty History.

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I thought I’d post some articles from the website of Craig Sams, founder of ‘Green and Blacks’, the first company to gain Fairtrade accreditation on one of their products. The Maya Gold Story tells the story, or for a shorter version see the text of a speech entitled Ten Years Of Fairtrade.

Young Methodists did an Olympic style run for fair trade, carrying a torch in relays between various English towns, haranguing supermarkets and shops to stock this first Fairtrade product. The senior confectionery buyer at Tesco phoned up: “Here, what’s this product all these vicars are phoning me about? You better come in and see me.” Fairtrade was on the map, with a product that (nicely) encapsulated its ideals. Cafédirect and Clipper soon signed up and the Fairtrade market went bananas.

The City Hippy weblog has a new interview with Craig Sams. The latest part is quite interesting, asking why Green & Blacks has only ever had one product certified as ‘Fairtrade’.

The simple answer is that the FT Mark costs 2% of turnover if you are a standard organisation, although Traidcraft, Café Direct and Equal Exchange only pay 1% as they are perceived to be ‘giving something back.’ Over the past decade we’ve paid over £300,000 in FT fees, none of which has gone back to the Maya producers in Belize.

I can see the reasoning behind their choosing not to go for the Fairtrade mark on all of their products, though I can also see why sending 1-2% to a central source to (I assume) encourage new Fairtrade products is a good idea. I suppose this shows that it is important to know something about the ethical stance of a company as well as the special marks or whatever their products display.

Summary:
Green and Blacks: Good
(and two tangential stories…)
Marks and Spencer: Good
Alliance and Leicester: Bad

Posted by Dave at 3:04 pm on February 7, 2006 and filed under Make Poverty History.

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God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.

SojoMail: Bono’s best sermon yet: Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

Posted by Dave at 6:19 pm on February 4, 2006 and filed under Make Poverty History.

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Well, let’s hope not, but one could see it happening. Here are various jumbled up quotes from articles I’ve been reading because my drawing is not going according to plan.

The UK is concerned that the international focus will move on from development now Russia has assumed the presidency of the G8

So says this Ekklesia report commenting on Gordon Brown’s article in last week’s Guardian. As Gordon Brown says:

In 2006 we will be judged not just on willing the millennium development goals but on delivering the resources to achieve them. All involved will have to prove that making poverty history is not just a passing fashion but a commitment for our generation.

To quote this piece in the Scotsman by Richard Saville-Smith of Save the Children:

Despite the clear demands of the public to end this injustice, world leaders didn’t do all they could to make child poverty history. Until no child goes to bed hungry and every child goes to school, gets treated when they are ill and is protected from violence, the campaigning must go on.

Together we will go on to hold leaders to the promises they made in 2005.

Posted by Dave at 12:41 pm on January 18, 2006 and filed under Make Poverty History.

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This e-mail has come to my attention (posh way of saying someone sent it to me):

Dear friends,

*******************************************************
THE FUTURE OF MAKE POVERTY HISTORY – WHAT DO YOU THINK?
*******************************************************

At the last Make Poverty History assembly it was clear that some agencies felt the MPH campaign should be looked on as a campaign that has ‘happened’. However, through informal discussion, some of us from TIDAL have found a very strong feeling amongst many organisations and individuals that the Make Poverty History campaign should continue in a modified, sustainable form. We are canvassing opinion to see how widespread this feeling is (see attached document). Please let us know if you and/or your organisation agree with the following statement:

“We believe that the Make Poverty History campaign, name, website and mailing list should continue into 2006 and beyond in a modified and sustainable form”

If you and/or your group/organisation agree, please let Joanna Brown know (email: jozart@fish.co.uk). Your name and/or group name and contact details will then be put on one of the lists in Appendix A of the attached document. Comments in support of this statement are also welcome (the comments will be made public but the name of the person will be kept confidential). The document will then be sent to the MPH Co-ordination Team (Appendix B).

Please circulate as widely as possible to individuals and groups that you think are interested in the future of MAKE POVERTY HISTORY.

Many thanks.

Kind Regards,

Joanna Brown

On behalf of Mary Keynes, Ben Margolis, Mahmood Messkoub and Bill Phelps from TIDAL

Dr Joanna Brown
TIDAL, JDC Board, MPH New Media Working Group and Leeds Fairtrade City Steering Group

I haven’t read the document in question as I am essentially just a nosey parker rather than an organisation. From what I can gather it looks as if Make Poverty History as a campaign will end at the end of theis year (?) but some of the smaller organisations at least are hoping that it will continue. I don’t know what should happen, all I know is that there has been a lot more going on behind the scenes within the Make Poverty History coalition than has been made public.

There was also a ‘behind the scenes’ programme about the Live8 concert on BBC one tonight. What I saw was quite illuminating. Part 2 is tomorrow I think.

Posted by Dave at 12:40 am on December 21, 2005 and filed under Live8, Make Poverty History.

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Tony Blair
The World Trade Organisation Ministerial meeting is from the 13-18 December in Hong Kong. One of the items on the agenda is the subsidies to western farmers which have an effect on the ability of famers in poor countries to seel their goods. The KickAllAgriculturalSubsidies blog is a good place to find links to help explain what is going on. If you go to the Make Poverty History website you can send a Christmas card to Prime Minister Tony asking him nicely to do what he can to Make Poverty History in 2006. It’s quite fun to do too – you can read other people’s cards, though your browser does need ‘Flash’ to do it.

Rowan and Jane Williams
I think Archbishop Rowan has been having a pretty tough time of it lately. What with nasty letters from Bishops and this and that it can’t be easy. According to Ruth Gledhill:

Towards the end, (Simon) Mayo asks him (Rowan), ‘Are you enjoying the job?’ He replies, ‘Depends which day of the week you ask me really. I get on with it.’ This is a veiled hint at what several independent sources have told me privately – that in fact, he is finding it pretty awful, even hellish.

I read an interview with Jane Williams in which she talked about the Christmas cards they are sent, so when you send yours why not send a card with an encouraging message to Rowan and Jane? The address is:

Lambeth Palace
London
SE1 7JU

Posted by Dave at 3:25 pm on December 13, 2005 and filed under Anglican goings-on, Make Poverty History.

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In case there are any absurdly organised people out there who are already thinking about buying Christmas presents…

You may or may not have come across Oxfam‘s Oxfam Unwrapped, where you can buy Christmas presents for people which in fact go to poor people elsewhere in the world to help them help themselves. The site has everything from school dinners to a camel. You can even make your own wish list of things you’d like to be given. I’ve never used the site I have to admit, though I do find Oxfam shops to be a superb source of presents, Christmas and otherwise.

Well, Christian Aid have now launched their own online gift emporium. Called ‘Present Aid‘ it has a similar range, everything from a can of worms to a school building. It’s well worth a look (and indeed a purchase) and as with the Oxfam site you can use Gift Aid to make your present go that little bit further.

(Thanks to Ian for the Christian Aid link.)

Posted by Dave at 7:07 pm on November 14, 2005 and filed under Make Poverty History.

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Today I went to London to join in with the Trade Justice lobby of Parliament, the main event of the campaign since the G8 demonstrations in the summer. They are saying 8000 people were there and I can well believe it, although the news has been rather overshadowed by other political events today. The BBC has Anti-poverty protesters lobby MPs, but also What happened to the Make Poverty History campaign?.

It did start to rain quite considerably half way through so all credit to those who made a day of it. I wandered around a bit and took some photos but eventually the weather got the better of me. It was quite impressive though, lots of little groups here and there talking to their MPs and a queue that went all the way through the park alongside the Houses of Parliament and then across the bridge and along the bank on the other side.

Update: Some lobbyists who met their MPs included International Orange, Gadget Vicar and Kerron Cross.

Click here to see a few more of my photos with ‘witty’ captions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Dave at 12:44 am on November 3, 2005 and filed under Current events, Make Poverty History.

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On Wednesday (2nd November 2005) there is a Mass lobby of Parliament for trade justice in London. I think I am going to go, as the alternative activity I had planned, that of moving two small boxes from one house to another seems unimportant in comparison.

Having said that I am frustrated by the fact that Make Poverty History is now using the “Trade justice – not free trade” slogan which Christian Aid have been using for a while now. I’m a Christian Aid supporter, but I think that slogan is unhelpful. In fact at Greenbelt the Christian Aid guy in a trade justice debate admitted that the slogan is a gross simplification, but claimed that if you’re going to campaign you need simplified slogans*. I tend to disagree, as did most of the Greenbelt crowd who felt rather patronised I think.

As far as I understand it more free trade is exactly what is needed in many cases, the stopping of subsidies to Western farmers being one example. I’m no economist, but even I can see that a ‘one slogan fits all’ approach doesn’t fit here. I think the ‘no free trade’ slogan is just downright distracting and makes enemies of many who want to end poverty as much as Christian Aid / Trade Justice Movement supporters do.

But the ‘Trade justice’ part I’m fully in support of, and so plan to be there on Wednesday.

As a partial aside: For a brief while I was tempted to look into this tool for armchair activists:

“…the machine is able to receive incoming sms messages and speak them out loud through its powerful megaphones, thus allowing the armchair activist to shout out its rants and protests in the comfort of his sitting room.”

Armchair activism. Oh yes.

*I have the precise quote written down. It was very similar to this but I’d need to find the piece of paper to quote it word for word.

Posted by Dave at 12:47 am on November 1, 2005 and filed under Current events, Make Poverty History.

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A Nestle coffee has been awarded the Fairtrade mark. Nestle, as you will be aware, is being boycotted by lots of people including the Methodists.

As Tim Worstall says:

“It’ll slightly divide the movement. Is Fairtrade about raising the prices to smaller farmers? Or about bashing big business?”

So, are you up in arms? Or quite pleased? Or still in bed and asleep?

Posted by Dave at 10:50 am on October 7, 2005 and filed under Current events, Make Poverty History.

6 Comments