Wyedean leads “timeless” fairtrade project with Haworth school
Exploring Fairtrade on the doorstep was the theme behind a unique collaboration between a Haworth manufacturer and its local primary school.
Wyedean Weaving, which celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, has opened its doors to Haworth Primary School pupils to help support their understanding of Fairtrade and global trade.
Haworth – the first village to be awarded Fairtrade status by the Fairtrade Foundation in 2022 – is home to family-owned Wyedean, a global manufacturer of military accoutrements for customers including the Ministry of Defence and the uniformed services in the UK and overseas.
Led by Managing Director Robin Wright, the Wyedean team created a four-week project for Year 5/6 children to complement the school’s geography studies around trade and global trade. The project began with a series of Wyedean-produced videos to explain global trading concepts such as supply chain, how Fairtrade works, navigating changes in global trade and concluded with an on-site factory tour for around 40 pupils.
Wyedean’s videos helped to prompt classroom discussions, encouraged further research and culminated with a challenge for pupils to script and create their own video blog about what they had learned.
Haworth Primary School Year 5/6 teacher Felicity Lacey said: “Our geography curriculum activities around fairtrade and global trade dovetailed perfectly into Wyedean’s real life experiences and operations which really helped bring these sometimes difficult concepts to life.
“Using Wyedean’s insights, the children looked at where raw materials come from, how they are manufactured and then how they are sold on. The activities linked into our PSHE curriculum of teamwork and into our computing curriculum as the children have also been using video programming software.”
Felicity added: “This is a timeless project which will remain relevant for years to come, meaning we can continue to use the material in the future. The children feel valued and incredibly excited to have been working with such a big company and they’ve loved working independently on their research, scriptwriting and video projects.”
For more than 60 years Wyedean, has specialised in the manufacture of military uniforms and ceremonial accoutrements including medal ribbons, military badges and braiding. Based in Bridgehouse Mill in Haworth, Wyedean produces 1.5million ceremonial uniform regalia and insignia items each year and in 2023, was awarded the contract to manufacture the British Armed Forces’ new Colours and Standards following King Charles III’s Coronation.
Wyedean’s global operation involves supplying countries from Canada to Kenya and across Europe. Managing Director Robin Wright said that with fairtrade at the company’s core, it was rewarding to educate a younger generation about ethical trading and the processes Wyedean has in place.
“Running a business as global as ours takes strict management and considerable process, something we are very proud of,” Robin explained.
“We work closely with all of our stakeholders and regularly take customers overseas to meet our key partners and see for themselves the quality and fairtrade standards we operate within. Our products are rich in tradition, history and heritage and are sought after all over the world so we’re delighted to be able to share our learnings and best practice with the next generation and to fuel their interest in business, industry and ethical business practices.”
Before the visit, Haworth Primary School presented pupils’ completed videos which demonstrated their understanding of global trade, fairtrade and of Wyedean itself. The winning video can be viewed on Wyedean’s website and is being shared with the company’s customers.
Eleven-year-old pupil Jack Painter said he’d learnt so much about the company with lots of people playing their part behind the scenes. He added: “I really enjoyed working in a team and finding out more about our local company – I had no idea it was even there, or what it made! I couldn’t believe they made costumes for films like Harry Potter, Fury and James Bond! Being able to visit the factory at the end of the project was a great way to see it happen in person. We even got to meet the Pakistan team that Wyedean work very closely with.”