Paradigm SHIFT - RGS Students' Local Fair Trade Initiative

By Kristin Lim for SHIFT; October 02, 2006

Meet Team SHIFT – a group of four fifteen-year-olds from Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) advocating for the Fair Trade cause.

Inspired by their RJC seniors in the Equator Initiative, who successfully championed efforts to increase the presence of Fair Trade in RGS, the team decided to take this on as the topic of their Community Problem Solving (CmPS) project, which is part of the Macquarie Bank Future Problem-Solving (FPS) competition based in Australia.

Team SHIFT targets their campaigns at secondary school youths and raises awareness about Fair Trade by giving presentations at various secondary schools, and is proposing for lesson plans about Fair Trade to be incorporated into school curriculum as an enrichment module. These presentations also present students with a suitable context for Service Learning projects to be initiated by students in their respective schools.

Team SHIFT is working closely with villagexchange as well as other prominent advocates of Fair Trade to explore ways to involve the youth community in Fair Trade. Right now, they’re working on a market survey to find out needs of the youth consumer so more can be done to appeal to them.

Team leader Yong Xin Tian says, “We want to create a paradigm shift in our community – starting from youths around us. Fair Trade’s a cause worth pushing for.”

For more information, or to link your school up with SHIFT, email SHIFT at one.shift@gmail.com!