Issue 154

Banana rama

12th March 2007

People and Planet held a very unusual banana eating competition on 2 March in aid of Fairtrade Fortnight. The event was designed to help raise awareness about fair-trade products and the importance of the trade.

As most of you are probably aware, fair-trade gives producers a fair price for their goods, whether it is bananas or coffee beans.

President of the society Katherine Lane commented that the event was not about pushing for more fair-trade goods at the university, as there is already a large choice of products available, but about continuing to raise awareness of the cause and encouraging people to buy fair trade products so that the university retains its Fairtrade status.

Throughout the day the society collared various passers by and challenged them to eat as many bananas in a minute as possible. The winner was Sam Bordiss who ate an amazing four bananas in one minute, and was coached by his friend Tom Copper. The average amount of bananas eaten was two in a minute. The day was very successful and fortunately no one was sick or seemed to suffer potassium poisoning!

People and planet are an active society which is part of a large national student organisation. Each group chooses what they want to campaign about and at the moment their main focus is on the National Go Green campaign and Fairtrade.

The main campaigning aims of the group are: to alleviate poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment. They are keen to work with other groups and have close links with the Environment Centre and are forming a connection with environment students at Swansea Institute, who want to combine on large scale events. They are also in contact with Oxfam, Amnesty International, and the Green party as well as many other organisations within Swansea.

Group members have the opportunity to attend the national People and Planet conference such as the one that took place in February where one of their members went to Leeds University to find out what other groups from across the country are doing and discover what they had planned for the rest of the year.

They hope in future to get funding to organise some trips away in conjunction with Swansea Institute students to places such as the Eden project or to some eco-villages.

Their meetings are held on most Mondays in JC's, but because they go to other talks around the city, meetings may not always be regular so it is recommended that you e-mail to check the meeting is going ahead.

If you would like more information about their current campaign please take a look at the People and Planet website: http://peopleandplanet.org or you can contact them at: peopleandplanet@sucs.org

Dawn Lewis