Greencamp 2006 Münster – Fair Trade, Football and Fun!

From Friday, June 9th, ’til Sunday, June 11th 2006, it was time for the fourth Greencamp, organized by “Kaktus”, the Youth Organization of the Münster Greens. About 25 young Greens from North-Rhine-Westphalia plus two participants from the Dutch Groenlinks took the opportunity to camp in the beautiful country-side on a bio-ecological farm in the vicinity of Münster.

The programme started on Friday: First the tents for the camp had to be set up, then – of course – it was time for public viewing of the opening match of the FIFA Football World Championship Germany vs. Costa Rica. A bonfire and barbecue made a nice atmosphere to get to know each other and make friends.

Saturday was the day for the political programme. This year’s camp was dedicated to the general topic “Fair Trade.” In the morning the participants had two inputs by representatives of the “Eine-Welt-Forum Münster” (“One-World-Forum Münster”) and the “Eine-Welt-Netz NRW” (“One-World-Network North-Rhine-Westphalia”). In the afternoon, the question was what politics can do to support fair trade-structures. The participants discussed this topic with Stephan Hense, co-spokesperson of the European working-group (LAG Europa) of the North-Rhine-Westphalian Greens. Some of the camp’s participants used the opportunity to travel to Gelsenkirchen to join in with some other 5.000 demonstrants for a manifestation against the neo-fascist German party NPD, who had a demonstration with 200 nationalists at the same time. Saturday evening was reserved for bonfire again, fun and party …

On Sunday morning the fair-trade publicity-campaign SUKUMA was presented to the camp, then it was time for the fourth Green football-classic “Bündnisgrüne vs. Groenlinks”. The two Dutch camp-participants were joined by three other football-players from Groenlinks Enschede, some of the German Green supported the Dutch team, as well. After the two rémis’ in 2004 and the Netherlands-Germany 11:1 (!) in Nijmegen 2005, now the German team was on the winning side and succeeded over the Dutch with 7:1. The teams t-shirts were just in the sense of the Heerlen-Group, Groenlinks played in blue with the slogan “It’s Yourope!”, Bündnisgrüne played in green with “Allez les Verts!”.

Greencamp 2006 – fair trade and fairplay! We’re already looking forward to Greencamp 2007!