The School for Social Entrepreneurs

Ghana for the World Cup! (and Divine Chocolate)

We're big Divine Chocolate fans over here at SSE, and Sophi Tranchell came to speak to some of the social entrepreneurs we support a few months back, which was hugely well-received.

Today, Divine are putting this ad in the Metro newspaper (with readership of well over 1m all told) to support Ghana in the World Cup. As you may well know, not only do the Ghanaian cocoa farmers get a fair price through supplying Divine, but also own (through their Kuapa Kokoo co-operative) 45% of the company; so they have a big say in how the company is run, and they share in its profits.

So here's to a Ghana victory over Uruguay tonight; one that will be celebrated by our Office Administrator Marta who pulled them out in the sweepstake...and what better way to celebrate than with a large bar of chocolate.

Coffee time: Black Gold and Ethiopia

I've been meaning to blog about coffee for a while, ever since I found myself in Cafe Direct's cafe just off Oxford Street. I was reminded to do so this morning in a queue for the good stuff by the person in front of me who ordered a 'soya latte with sugar-free hazelnut syrup....two shots', to which the barista even smirked. Having wisely resisted the temptation to ask "and would you like some coffee with that?", I got thinking about coffee, how much I like it...and how guilty I should feel about drinking it.

One interesting post about this fairly recently (ish):
- Britt Bravo on Oxfam using flickr to advocate for Ethiopian farmers which is in turn connected to the film Black Gold (which I'm yet to see: any good, anyone? Or a TV documentary masquerading as film?), itself sponsored by none other than Cafe Direct. Britt's post also mentions Green LA Girl, who previously set up a blogosphere Starbucks Fairtrade Challenge in which people asked Starbucks to live up to their promise of making any coffee with fairtrade coffee if you ask. Try it today....(congratulations to Shepherd's Bush branch, who didn't bat an eyelid).

More recently, she's blogged about the extraordinary Starbucks vs Ethiopia trademarking stuff. Worth a read, particularly if you're sitting over a fresh brew currently.

Video posting: the Camel

 

Have a few bits of video I want to post up occasionally, so thought I would give this a test run (using VideoEgg.com). Here is a video of our local pub (the Camel) detailing its history during the war as an early social enterprise!