The University of Cantabria creates a fair trade map

  • 2012

Consuming fair trade products is now easier in Cantabria thanks to the International Development Cooperation Area (ACOIDE) of the University of Cantabria, which through Google Maps has created a collaborative map where NGOs, restaurants, bars and stores that offer this type of products in the Cantabrian community. It is a constantly updated map, which is why the university has asked people who know fair trade establishments not to appear on it to contact it.

This project is part of the activities in favor of fair trade that the University of Cantabria performs as a University for Fair Trade, a title that it received in November last year from the NGO IDEAS, promoter of this initiative in Spain, which forms part of the European City for Fair Trade program.

“The University of Cantabria has a great track record in fair trade. Already in 1997 they began offering fair trade products in their cafeterias, ”explains María Blanco, ACOIDE technician. It is not surprising, therefore, that in 2008, when ACOIDE itself was born, it was decided that fair trade would be one of the mainstays of the area dedicated to cooperation in the university center.

As a University for Fair Trade, one of the duties of the University of Cantabria is to sensitize the population. Scope in which the elaboration, through Google Maps, of this map of places that offer fair trade, where about twenty NGOs, bars and Cantabrian stores are framed. It is also possible to locate the enclaves of the university where these products are sold.

The map is not yet finished, and the idea of ​​ACOIDE is that the citizens themselves collaborate to include the missing places. As we are aware that we probably do not know all the places where fair trade is sold in Cantabria, we have asked people to help us in the task of completing this map, says Blanco. To do this, you just have to send a message to the university by email

In addition to raising awareness and promoting fair trade, the other three requirements that a university must meet to be declared a University for Fair Trade are to approve an institutional declaration favorable to fair trade and use products fair trade at the institutional level; have Fair Trade products on the university campus and have a university work group dedicated to Fair trade. According to the website of the City for Fair Trade, apart from the University of Cantabria, four other Spanish university centers have already completed the process (Alcal, C rdoba, Ja And Malaga), and there are seven more in the process of getting it.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

http://www.ciudadjusta.org/content/view/36/38/

Map:

Image: Map of fair trade c ntabro. Courtesy of ACOIDE.

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