On Sunday, May 16 from 10.00am to 10.00pm, the Upper Barrakka Gardens in Valletta will be hosting hundreds of Fair Traded food items and crafts from Malta and small communities in Latin America, Asia and Africa, and a series of events celebrating Food Sovereignity at this year’s ninth edition of WorldFest. This Fair Trade Festival is organized by the volunteers of Koperattiva Kummerċ Ġust in collaboration with other organisations.

This year’s edition will include a traditional Ethiopian coffee ritual, a public forum in Maltese on food sovereignity, a stand by two Mexican workers and labour rights activists who have been invited to Malta to share their experiences, different activities for children and teenagers, a performance of forum theatre, and a concert featuring a young international female trio, traditional dabke dance and the up-and-coming Maltese band Plato’s Dream Machine. Entrance to all events will be free.

WorldFest will bring to an end KKĠ’s campaign on food sovereignty, Kieku l-Ikel Jitkellem, supported by the EU-funded project Enlarging Fair, which was launched on World Food Day, 2009, in cooperation with a host of other local and foreign organisations.

Other organisations, NGOs and cooperatives that will also have stands are Koperattiva Rurali Manikata, the Arabic Culture Information Society, Moviment Graffitti, The Gaia Foundation, Food First Malta, Friends of the Earth Malta, Greenhouse Malta, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, I Shop Fair Project, Home Economists in Action, and Ta’ Żeppi. These will provide local produce and information about different issues related to food. For the first time, Koperattiva Rurali Manikata will be selling carob syrup made with local carobs and Fair Trade sugar.

During the day there will be activities for children such as face painting. Between 11.00 a.m. and 12.00 noon and between 5.00 and 6.00 p.m. there will be interactive activities for teens. Two Mexican women, one working in a factory that produces mobile phones and the other working with CEREAL, a Mexican NGO dealing with human rights, will be present throughout the day to raise awareness about the harsh conditions that workers have to face in the supply chain of IT production.

Workshop on electronics industry and Workers' Right
Saturday, 15th May, in Dar l-Ewropea from 1pm-3pm.

Do you own a mobile phone? Do you use a computer? Have you ever played electronic games? Have you bought or used a laptop? Have you ever wondered who assembles these products? Have you ever thought under which conditions they are produced? Have you ever asked who is the person behind such a product?

Whether X-Box, Blackberry, or simply computer: The electronics industry is happy to be modern and to have advanced equipment to
facilitate your daily work and life. However,it is a completely different experience for the IT workers in producing countries such as
Mexico or Thailand: exploitation, inhumane treatment and precarious employment relationships are high on the agenda.

SKOP, the national platform of Maltese NGOs working in international development cooperation and Global Education will like to invite you to the 5th National Development Education Seminar on 10 May 2010 at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta.

The main aims of the seminar is to show case the initiatives on Global Education in Maltese schools, to have workshops on different topics related to Global Education and to kick-start the process of developing a national Development Education Strategy for Malta.