Welcome to the Galway One World Centre’s website!

Here, we try to bring you – and on a regular basis, no less! – alternative views on current news stories, must-read articles and other bits and pieces we thought you might like to know about. Don’t worry, if you miss any, you can read all of them on the Updates page …

Also, check out our new events which will be updated as they arise – best way to keep up with it is to subscribe!

February

February – usually the month to catch up on everything as January has traditionally been the month to write funding applications. This year, of course, all of this has gone haywire as the funding guidelines / deadlines has changed and so it’s supposed to be all happening in February … Therefore, little time (apologies!) to update website as planned but finally getting around to it

February  - first month of Spring in Ireland! We seem to be spared this year’s cold snap happing all over the rest of Europe, the Daffodils are already in bloom in some areas – what better month to look at the global flower industry? So if you intend to buy your loved ones flowers for Valentines, you might like to check out these links first …

To save Colombia from cocaine, buy its roses? As Linda Farthing writes for UpsideDown World, there are a number of problems with this approach … She has a number of interesting links at the bottom of the page too, worth looking at.

How fair are your flowers?  Gabriela Perdomo investigates for the Tyee Newsletter where certified fair-trade flowers come from – and do the really make a difference? A total of five articles.

Why I won’t be giving my mother fairtrade flowers - Felicity Lawrence explains why she thinks fair trade flowers are a problem (slightly older article – 2005!)

An overview of criticism of Fair Trade from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade

What about the environmental impact of (Fair Trade) Flowers? They still need to be flown over here, are often grown in areas that may need a lot of water input or that could be used for growing food. A couple of articles from the Guardian last year looking at the environmental impact of buying flowers from Kenya - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/01/kenya-flower-industry-worker-conditions-water-tax

So …  should we buy flowers at all?