It’s very important to document the Fairtrade projects or events you’re involved in. After all, you’ve created something unique so why not allow that experience to live on by sharing it with others. All these individual stories together tell the whole Fairtrade story...

First you need to collect some memories, and then you need to share them.

Step one: Collecting your Fairtrade memories

Collect your stories using different types of media:
• Images (photographs, scans of drawings)
• Video (interviews, performances, events)
• Audio (interviews, music)
Remember to use a permission form when filming or photographing people.

Who, what, when, where, why?
• Document people! Interesting photos often include close-ups of faces – try to show any emotion and capture people’s spirit.
• Record the location in a variety of wide, mid, close, and extreme close shots. Is there something that will make your project/event stand out fromothers? For example, if you’re documenting a banana eating record event, is there something that will differentiate your event from the other banana recordevents happening?
• Capture details such as signs/banners, and products featuring the FAIRTRADE Mark.
• If you’re recording audio or collecting written quotes, ask people ‘why’ or ‘how’ instead of questions they can answer with yes or no.

Step two: Share

Once you’ve collected all your stories, you’ll want to make sure other people see or hear them.

 1) Put it online yourself
• Images (Fairtrade Fortnight 2009 Flickr group): http://www.flickr.com/groups/1007124@N21/pool/
• Video/audio: www.youtube.com/fairtradefoundation
• Spread the Fairtrade word on social networking sites such as www.facebook.com, www.myspace.com, www.bebo.com, www.ning.com

If you don’t already have a website for your Fairtrade Town, School or University campaign, now’s the time to create one. Use it to hold your product directory, tell people about your events and encourage others to join your group.

Tagging your media is very important. Otherwise no one will find it! Tag your photos, videos, stories, websites with words such as: Fairtrade, fair, trade, community development, fortnight, farmers, workers, the name of your event, the name of its location, the name of the product (if it relates to something specific such as banana or coffee), the name of a producer or producer group where appropriate.

2) Pass it on to us
• Send your stories and photos to shareyourstory@fairtrade.org.uk
Please send only a couple of your best images at a time, and not your whole album!
Include a title and description of your photo. Formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP or TIFF. Image size: Maximum 3MB

• If you don’t have access to the internet you can send a disc in the post.
Please address your package to:
Share Your Story
The Fairtrade Foundation
3rd Floor
IBEX House
42–47 Minories
London EC3N 1DN
If you would like your disc returned, please include a stamped self-addressed envelope.