15 June 2009
To celebrate International Day of the African Child (Tuesday 16th June), interactive educational resource ‘Pa Pa Paa LIVE’ is offering free access to its brand new webcast from schoolchildren in rural Ghana. Ideal as the focus of a ‘Day of the African Child’ assembly or classwork this Tuesday, schools can listen and watch children from Ghana present their hopes and dreams for the future at papapaalive.org. The children, who are sons and daughters of cocoa farmer members of the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative, have just finished filming this unedited webcast themselves. This is just one in an ongoing series of webcasts providing a child-eye view of Ghanaian life available to schools on subscription.
Pa Pa Paa LIVE is the latest extension to the hugely popular Fairtrade education resources developed by Comic Relief and Fairtrade charity Trading Visions. It is an innovative online video broadcasting service for schools where students in the UK can directly interact with students in Ghana, giving schoolchildren in the UK and Ghana a window into each other’s worlds. Trading Visions exists to amplify the voices of small scale farmers in developing countries and Pa Pa Paa LIVE is a unique way of achieving this, providing the next generation with the means to speak for themselves and to interact with the next generation here in the UK.
International Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16th June every year since the end of Apartheid in 1991. It honours the thousands of black schoolchildren who took to the streets during the Soweto Uprising of 1976 to protest about the inferior quality of their education. With organisations including UNICEF and Christian Aid taking part, International Day of the African Child draws attention to the lives of African children today. This very special and uplifting Pa Pa Paa webcast has been specially made to honour the day, and highlights the hope and aspirations young people in Africa have for their futures; free from poverty and full of opportunities.
Schoolchildren from a Fairtrade cocoa growing district in rural Ghana discuss their career aspirations, mentioning professions including footballer, doctor, cocoa farmer, pastor, and journalist. They consider the lengthy training needed to become a qualified doctor and the cost of attending university. One pupil voices her desire to move to Accra, the capital of Ghana, while another would prefer to stay in the countryside and be a cocoa farmer like his parents. One boy would like to have 10 children; while another is keen to purchase a Hummer or a VW Golf like his doctor-friend! Schools can view this remarkable and eye-opening footage at papapaalive.org.
Pilot sessions in UK schools have shown that this direct contact with young people in developing countries can have a profound effect on their contemporaries here and their understanding of how Fairtrade impacts upon the lives of children in poorer circumstances.
“This experience will change our lives forever as we have seen how pupils live in a country very different to ours and the differences and similarities between our lives”, said Year 10 pupils at a school in Bridgend, Wales.
Pa Pa Paa LIVE delivers monthly webcasts from a school in Ghana attended by the children of cocoa farmers who belong to the co-operative that co-owns Fairtrade leader Divine Chocolate. The school itself was built with money from the Fairtrade premium paid for Kuapa’s cocoa.
The students at the Ghanaian school film all the webcasts themselves. Pupils in the UK ask them questions online which they can then respond to in the webcast. Pupils can log in to learn more about the lives of young people from a school built with Fairtrade social premiums.
Pa Pa Paa LIVE is aimed at Key Stages 2 & 3, and supports teaching on fair trade, Geography, PSHE, the Global Dimension, Citizenship and ICT. As well as the monthly webcasts, the package includes a DVD, photo pack, lesson guides and a comprehensive online teaching resource on Fairtrade and chocolate. The monthly webcasts can be viewed through a computer and projector or interactive whiteboard. The webcasts are themed and give insight into the children’s culture, education and traditional food. An annual subscription offers a new webcast (of approx 10 minutes in length) every month at a price of £40.
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For further details contact:
Charlotte Borger.
Rosanna Mayhew
0207 378 6550
Editors’ notes:
Trading Visions is an independent charity set up by Divine Chocolate Ltd in 2003 to build on the award-winning Fairtrade education work undertaken in partnership between Comic Relief, Kuapa Kokoo cocoa co-operative and Divine and Dubble Fairtrade chocolate. Trading Visions has a track record in using innovative new technologies to amplify the voices of small-scale producers in the supply chain, bringing producers and consumers face to face in fun and accessible educational experiences that challenge and change consumer behaviour and industry practice.
Tom Allen. Trading Visions Project and Policy Manager
Trading Visions
Divine Chocolate Ltd is co-owned by Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of 45,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana who grow the Fairtrade beans for Divine and Dubble, and who share in the profits.
All Divine and Dubble products carry the Fairtrade Mark. This is an independent guarantee certified by the Fairtrade Foundation that the ingredients are sourced under internationally agreed fair trade terms and conditions. These include a guaranteed, secure minimum price, an extra social premium payment for the farmers to invest in their own community programmes, long term trading contracts, decent health and safety conditions – all aimed at empowering farmers to make their own improvements to living standards and prospects for the future.
Please see papapaa.org/live for Pa Pa Paa LIVE! and papapaa.org for Pa Pa Paa teaching resources, lesson plans and DVD. Pa Pa Paa means ‘best of the best’ in ‘Twi’, the language of Ghanaian cocoa farmers, and is the slogan of the Ghanaian Kuapa Kokoo cocoa cooperative.