60 year 4, 5 & 6 pupils from St James' Primary School in Elstead had a harsh lesson on 6th November, quickly realising that global trading is deeply unfair!
The children were broken down into two groups of six countries representing rich/emerging & poor countries of the world and tried to generate wealth for their ‘countries’ by making paper shapes which had a currency they could then bank. The poor countries had lots of raw materials (paper) but no technology and the rich countries had all the technology but limited raw materials. The rich countries quickly began manufacturing but were unwilling to trade their technology for the raw materials they needed thereby ensuring the poor countries remained poor. It evoked some wonderful thinking and comments from the pupils... "I learnt that you have to think about he trade before you do it. Fairtrade will make sure that people who are poor will get some money, I loved the game!" and, "I learnt that we should trade more fairly so that some children go to bed with a full stomach and that if we work fairly we will probably all have the same amount of money and hopefully that will mean there will be no more wars."
A de-brief following the game highlighted the plight of the cocoa farmers in Ghana and the fact that out of a £1 bar of chocolate the farmers only receive 7p with the rest going to the two Governments in tax, the manufacturers and the retailers which the children thought was deeply unfair.A powerful and thought provoking game for all concerned.
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