Fair Go! Jill's Making A Conscience Choice

Volunteer Jill Burge (53) Has Recently Travelled Overseas To Meet Producers Supplying Trade Aid Stores

- Hayley McLarin

“It was a radio ad that set me on a path of social conscience – with the slogan, ‘Give good gifts because good gifts give.’

The English teacher part of me loved that play on words, while the economics teacher in me gets how people actually can trade their way out of poverty if given a fair chance.

I heard the ad when we had just returned to New Plymouth after our family spent four years in Oman, in the Middle East. I walked into the Trade Aid store and signed up to be a shop volunteer. Fifteen years later, I am still involved in Trade Aid.

Social justice is important to me and my husband Neil. It’s easy to think there is nothing we can do about things happening around the world. But you can.

I have been chair of the New Plymouth Trust for four years, and I am also the education officer and go into schools and talk to clubs.

This year I was fortunate enough to go on an education tour of Trade Aid-producing communities in India and Sri Lanka. There were 11 of us who self-funded the trip and it was a real eye-opener.