Tag: #rainbowturtle

Education, Fair Trade Fortnight, Uncategorised

School competition results are in!

Linda Okhuoya-Ologe

As some of you may remember, this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight brought focus to young people and their call for action to slow down the environmental crisis and help those most affected.

To encourage local youth to think about it, Rainbow Turtle has organised a competition for school-aged children. The task was to design a Fairtrade t-shirt that corresponded with the “Choose the world you want” theme.

We are happy to announce, that the winners have been chosen, even though the choice wasn’t easy. We were flooded by the submission and they were all very unique and attractive! We want to thank all the parents, guardians and teachers, who encouraged children to think about Fairtrade and to take part in the competition. We also want to say a huge THANK YOU to all the young people who took part. You are our future leaders and the faith of our planet and its habitants depends also on your choices. We thank you for taking the time to think about the current environmental emergency and about farmers in producers living and working in the global south. You may not be earning, spending and investing money just yet, but Fairtrade is more than just a shopping logo. It’s a movement of people who care about others and sharing that message and awareness is a fantastic way of making sure our guardians, teachers or local and global decision-makers hear your voice and act upon it.

The number of designs and their quality prompted us to split the artworks and prizes into 3 categories: Primary School years 1-3, Primary School years 4-7 and Secondary School.

Congratulations to all the winners and please bear with us, if your prize hasn’t arrived yet. We are working hard to arrange everything so that each of the winners will get a small token of gratitude.

You can see all the winning artworks and a selection of other entries in our shop’s window. It adds a lovely splash of colour to our building 🙂

Below you can see photos of laureates from the secondary school category with their certificates. Their teacher rewarded them with a trip to our shop, where they were able to receive their prizes and certificates in person.

Shop, Uncategorised

Talking GLOVES Part 1

Elise Kelly

We are talking Fair Trade gloves with an added, added bonus!

NOT ONLY do the gloves already wash away and weed out unfair trade BUT… they are also of a seriously high standard…

How do I know? I have washed my fair share of dishes and ended up with my fair share of wet hands, despite always wearing rubber gloves! I have a large family and have never owned an electric dishwasher. With a house full of human ones (not electric), we have, until now, gone through too many pairs of washing-up gloves. Always the right hand, falling foul of a sharp knife or whatever secret predator lies in the bubbles, defying rubber gloves.

No longer! At Rainbow Turtle I have purchased a pair of Traidcraft’s wonder gloves and at an extremely modest price too. Note the singular: a pair, still going strong, many dishes and dry hands later!

As if that is not joy enough, we have customers on a waiting list for the marvellous gardening gloves. They have never known such good gardening gloves!

Do not despair, if your hands are smaller than large, as they are also available in medium.

The secret to these marvellous gloves? – aside from the fantastic price, quality assurance and practical way to purchase and support Fair Trade – is a supply chain that starts in a region in southern Sri Lanka and in Laos. It supports the farmers who grow the rubber trees and tap them for latex.

Join us. Shout out loud and clear about this extremely practical way to support Fair Trade. I invite you to be a voice for washing away and weeding out unfair trade, whilst remaining clean and dry.

If you want to give the gloves a try, pop along to Rainbow Turtle and buy, buy, buy…

Education, Shop

BrickLive Animal Paradise

Elise Kelly

Here’s looking at you! FREE FUN!

Turtles and tortoises are endangered animals. Until 15 August 2021, there is one for you to find in Paisley ( – let us know whether it is a tortoise or a turtle?) There are 15 animals in total.

One of the species, wanders about Paisley. Rainbow Turtle has just hosted the wandering, endangered visitor – Ginger the Giraffe. He is the only animal not made of bricks and goes out on tour as part of https://paisleyfirst.com/ BrickLive Animal Paradise trail: the local trail showcasing endangered animals of the world, represented in bricks, and placed all around the centre of Paisley.

You can pick up a leaflet in our Rainbow Turtle shop – and other outlets in town. FIND all of the animals, enter the PRIZE DRAW and you may WIN! FUN for all of the family and FREE.

Ginger is not so easy to find because he moves around every few days. Now you see him, now you don’t… To find him, look for the clues online @Paisleyfirst, or in the Piazza Shopping Centre, Paisley Centre, or at the Paisley First office on the corner of County Square and Gilmour street.

There are serious messages amongst this fun. By identifying the endangered species, we can start out on our road of learning to be protectors, rather than predators and do our bit to help to save these hugely important animals. By taking the trail, we find our own local treasures: our local businesses, helping you to Live Life Local and to Love Paisley – they also need preserving from the threat of becoming endangered.

Let us help everyone and everything.

On the theme of turtles: Rainbow Turtle shop, located at 7 Gauze Street, Paisley, PA1 1EP, has push along turtles, turtle puzzles, turtle bags, nodding head turtles (large and small), turtle notebooks, turtle incense holders and a huge variety of other toys, gifts, and goodies galore…

To find the turtle made of bricks (or is it a tortoise?), pick up a leaflet and embark on the BrickLive Animal Paradise trail!

Education, Shop

JOIN IN! Become a FRIEND of RAINBOW TURTLE and SUPPORT SCOTLAND

Elise Kelly

Rainbow Turtle is a charity that supports Fair Trade, and ethical, sustainable living. It is a beacon for Paisley, a Fair Trade town, for Renfrewshire, a Fair Trade council and for all of Scotland, a Fair Trade nation. JOIN IN, become a supporter and WIN for inclusive economic growth, fair wages and better working and living conditions!

Fair Trade works to transform trade, to achieve justice, equity and sustainability for people and the planet. It matters! You can help us to spread the word from as little as £12 / year for membership of Rainbow Turtle.

Every new membership helps us to spread the word that trade can be fair and ethical. We use the money to educate the public via our shop, visits to organisations, schools and churches, stalls, and through direct work with producers and wholesalers.

You can Gift Aid your membership.

You are very welcome to get in touch / visit us TODAY and EVERY DAY!

  • Phone our shop/office on 0141 887 1881.
  • Visit our shop at 7 Gauze Street, Paisley, PA1 1EP.
  • You can keep up to date by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. Clicking on the link will take you to an online form. Please note that when you complete it you will be sent a confirmation email. If you haven’t received the email within 5 minutes check your spam or junk mail folder.
  • Or you can email us using our contact form: https://www.rainbowturtle.org.uk/contact-us/

Tell your friends, family and colleagues – they are all WELCOME

Education, Seasonal, Shop

TRAIDCRAFT WEEK – Photography Competition

Elise Kelly

This week is Traidcraft Week – a celebration of everything Fair Trade – here with a competition to win a £50 Traidcraft voucher or a Traidcraft hamper. The theme: AL FRESCO

All you have to do is submit photographs of your favourite outdoor spaces, such as parks, beaches, canals, forests or even your own back gardens, to: marketing@traidcraft.co.uk

Closing date is 27 June 2021 – so HURRY!

Why hurry? – because you want to win that Fair Trade hamper. The food is fabulous and fair. Or you may win £50 to spend in Traidcraft. How lucky is that? Their products are wonderful and by shopping there you are also helping developing countries.

Traidcraft has been on the go for over 40 years, pioneering fair trade.

The organisation was founded in 1979 by radical, church-based individuals importing goods directly from artisans and growers and distributing them directly to shoppers in the UK, cutting out the middlemen. The team collaborated with the growers and artisans throughout the process: they were all partners – working together to show trade could be different, and could be fair. They still do – only on a bigger scale. In 1992, Traidcraft co-founded the Fairtrade Foundation, and helped establish the standards that underpin today’s well-recognised Fairtrade Mark.

Time to get clicking…