Month: March 2020

More than a quarter of a million school children experiencing literary poverty

Stuart Mitchell

A child in literary poverty is defined as a child who is read to or with for pleasure, for less than 15 minutes a week outside of school. BookTrust’s latest study shows that 345,000* (14%) school children aged seven to nine are currently falling into this category, with a further 17% on the border, being read to or with for less than half an hour a week. Worryingly, six per cent of children aged 7-9 fall into the worse category of literary poverty, with their parents or guardians never reading to…

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Fairtrade Fortnight 2020 ‘She Deserves’

Stuart Mitchell

The UK is a nation of chocoholics, but many of us don’t know the bitter truth of exploited farmers behind much of the sweet chocolate we enjoy. Fairtrade Fortnight, the annual campaign calling for cocoa farmers to be paid fairly for their work and earn a living income, will run from 24th February – 8th March.  This year Fairtrade’s nationwide ‘She Deserves’ campaign is highlighting the hidden inequality experienced by the women and girls behind the multibillion global chocolate industry. In West Africa, where 60% of the world’s cocoa is grown, the average woman cocoa farmer earns as little…

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Plant-based wraps and sandwiches the big winners during Veganuary 2020

Stuart Mitchell

Brits created all time record demand for plant-based wraps and sandwiches during Veganuary last month, Tesco can reveal. During the month long event – which sees people pledging to eat only vegan food – demand for plant-based wraps and sandwiches at the supermarket soared by nearly 75 per cent against the previous Veganuary. The most popular was a Falafel and Houmous wrap which is part of Tesco’s Plant Chef, own label offering. And demand for plant-based sandwiches bought as part of a meal deal including a snack and a drink…

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Amazon Announces First-Ever ‘Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year Awards’

Stuart Mitchell

Amazon has announced the first-ever Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year Awards to honor and recognize seven all-star teachers and their schools working diligently to help students in underserved and underrepresented communities build life-changing skills to propel their futures in computer science–with prize packages valued at more than $25,000. The more than 2,400 teachers participating in the Amazon Future Engineer Program at over 2,100 schools nationwide can be nominated or apply at AmazonFutureEngineer.com from February 13th to March 12th. Amazon Future Engineer inspires, educates, and prepares hundreds of thousands…

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UBS and Bloomberg Launch “Girls Take Finance” in 12 Cities Globally to Inspire Teenage Girls to Be the Next Generation of Leaders

Stuart Mitchell
UBS

UBS and Bloomberg announce the launch of “Girls Take Finance,” a global initiative that expands the 2019 “Girls Take” events to 12 cities worldwide. “Girls Take Finance” aims to inspire the next-generation of leaders by providing young women, aged 14-18, with insight into the financial services industry and career opportunities in business, finance and technology. In 2020, UBS and Bloomberg will expand “Girls Take Finance” to major cities across the globe, including Frankfurt, Jakarta, Johannesburg, London, San Francisco, São Paulo, Sydney, and Zurich. “As someone who started his career in…

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