Hello lovely readers. A few days ago, we told you that we were going to start thanking you properly for all the awesome love you've given us this year.
And today, it starts right here.
Tell us about someone you love and why they deserve some chocolate from us. The best thirty comments on this post by the 20th of December will get a whole bunch of chocolately goodness from us.
Come and get it.
We've written before about the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership and how Cadbury committed to build a well a day in Ghana in 2007.
Since then the CCP and its amazing partners have been working really hard to bring this ambition to life. One of the communities who've recently become part of this story is Abobiri, where the new well has given the community access to portable drinking water for the first time in their lives.
This picture was taken by Danielle Derks last week Thursday. Look how excited the kids are at the prospect of pumping water from their very own well - awesome! According to Danielle it's already been used very well.
Wow. 2009 has flown in.
And for us it has been absolutely incredible.
We've gone Fairtrade. Hosted webcasts. Visited dairy farms. Rummaged through the Cadbury archives. Gone to Ghana. Met the cocoa farmers we've been working with for over a hundred years. Given away t-shirt. Hosted Ghanaian food Masterclasses.
We've also been absolutely inundated with love from everyone reading this blog and for that, we can't thank you enough.
We've received thousands of emails, hundreds of comments and been on the receiving end of a number of mutual blog love. That's why we're going to end 2009 and kick off 2010 by saying thanks.
Over the next two weeks we're launching a love offensive. And today it starts on Twitter. Follow us to take part.
We loved reading about Kwame Nkrumph-Acheampong.
You might not know his name now, but we think he's going to be much discussed during the Winter Olympics.
You see, he is Ghana's Winter Olympic team. Kwame had never even seen snow until he arrived in the UK in 2000. He then got a job at his local Xcape and keep working until he made it all the way to the Olympics.
And his work hasn't just been limited to sport, he's also had to do a lot of fundraising to get there - getting people to sponsor a spot on his leopard-print ski suit.
Watch his interview wtih the BBC here.
Good luck Kwame, we'll be rooting for you!
While Tinny was here he dropped into studio with Sway to remix of Zingolo. Sway has remixed some of the world's best known artists including Akon and The Pussycat Dolls. Tinny said that he was delighted to be working with Sway. Apparently the two of them had a great time in studio together.
We sat down with Tinny, the star of Zingolo, our Fairtrade music video to see if he's enjoyed his time in the UK.
Tell us a bit about where you grew up
I’m a Ghana boy through and though. I grew up in an area called labadi in Accra.
Is anyone in your family involved in the production of cocoa in Ghana?
Not in my family, no. But my managers family are all cocoa farmers or involved in cocoa farming in some way.I’ve never called myself Sexy. In my song it says they call me sexy. That question is really for my fans.
Today Tinny visited Bruce Grove Youth Centre to hang out with the kids working on music there.
The Centre is the only statutory youth provision in the area, consisting of a £3million state of the art building which attracts local young people in the 13-17 year age group from Bruce Grove and across Tottenham and Haringey.
Tinny performed, toured the facility and spoke to staff and volunteers about Ghana and Fairtrade. Many of the young people had recently taken part in a series of Fairtrade workshops and were keen to hear Tinny's perspective on the impact of Fairtrade upon Ghana's cocoa farming communities.
He had a great time and told us "I loved meeting all the young people here and seeing their passion for music and for Fairtrade. It's a fantastic centre and does a great job giving these kids the facilities to learn new skills - whether that's about important issues like Fairtrade, music, dance or drama."
We loved reading the Ghana Expedition 2010 blog.
In the summer of 2010 two teams (each 11 students and 2 teacher) will
be heading from Woodford County High School to Ghana for 4 weeks.
During that time, they plan to work in the
community, hoping to make a difference.
We were especially delighted to see that they'd decided to change their team name to Zingolo in honour of our Fairtrade campaign. Thanks guys, we're honoured and rooting for you!!
Who are you and what do you do at Afrigadget? Do you have another job or is that what you spend all your time on?
I'm an Afrigadget contributor but my full time job is as a software developer, specialising in writing web applications and android apps. I work for Ushahidi Inc, a non-profit organization that develops a web application for crowdsourcing crisis information.
Close to three years.
Why is this such a passion of yours?
What do you know about Cadbury Dairy Milk and the move to Fairtrade?
I did not know about it until I saw the Fairtrade commercial with Tinny on YouTube. I plan to find out more!
On weekdays, I am mostly at home working. I spend most of my time behind the computer and on weekends, Saturdays, I go for group meetings and try to spend time with my friends. Sundays are the days, I try to stay off work, jump onto my motorcycle and ride as far as I can, keeping track of my travels with my GPS enabled phone so I can map them on Google maps.
You can find out more about Henry by reading his blog.
The Cadbury Cocoa Partnership was founded in 2008. It works to secure the economic, social and environmental sustainability of around a million cocoa farmers and their communities. Here’s how:
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