Cocoa Farmers

In a special set up by the ‘BitterSweet’ team, the children will be challenged to pick as many ‘cocoa beans’ as they can! Taking the beans to be weighed, they find that their hard work doesn’t necessarily mean that they will get a good wage!

AIM: This practically informs the students about how hard the Ghanaian cocoa farmers work, and how unfair their wages can be.

Going to Market

A member of the ‘Bittersweet’ team will lead the students through a Ghanaian market, where they must help their family survive with the money they are given as cocoa farmers. As they go around the market, they have to make decisions between buying:

• Medicine
• Food
• Rent
• Education
• Sweets
• Books

AIM: The students learn how difficult it is for a family to survive on such small wages.

Where Does Our Food Come From?

This is a classroom-based installation, where students are encouraged to think about where their food comes from in a creative session that involves finding countries on inflatable globes that produced their breakfast! They then go on to learn about the journey of the cocoa bean in an interactive session.

AIM: To find out that we rely on many countries to provide our food and to learn how a chocolate bar is made.

The Boardroom

As soon as they walk into the room, the students are transformed into important board members of a successful chocolate company, where they are given the opportunity to vote on their Managing Director’s performance – have they been fair in the way they have raised the profits of the company? The installation is then opened up into discussion on Fairtrade and the students will take part in an exercise on where the money goes when you buy a chocolate bar.

AIM: To highlight how companies can be unfair in the distribution of their profits and explain the importance of Fairtrade.