For five days from Wednesday 24th – Sunday 28th June the Open Trade Network hosted an open market event outside the Chapelfield Shopping centre in Norwich.

The event was part of an effort to promote and support commercial and social enterprise amongst young people. Along with Chapelfield the event was also supported by the Norwich & Norfolk Racial Equality Council (NNREC) and the Future Project & Future Radio.

Future Radio brought along their mobile Sound Box which was open for young people and adults to have a chance to select music and have a go at using professional recording equipment. Najib Bateman, the former chief  sound engineer at Yusuf Islam’s Mountain of Light studios, was on hand at times to give advice and instruction to those not used to using the equipment or music editing software.

Although the market was relatively small with less than a dozen traders, it was very well presented and managed to meet with the very strict instructions and requirements of the shopping centre. On sale were items such as t-shirts, trainers (sports shoes), incense, books, games, olive oil, jewellery and clothing. Food in general was not allowed at the event due to the number of food establishments inside the mall itself.

Those young people that were directly involved did get valuable experience and advice and perhaps more importantly from their point of view, quite a few of them actually made some money through either direct selling (sales commission) or payment for helping out stallholders.

Also a lot of goodwill was generated with the traders who all gave donations towards the costs based on their sales during the event. One trader even paid the cost of a parking ticket incurred by one of the organisers out of a recognition of the work that had gone into the event.

We hope the shopping centre management will be impressed enough to give us use of what is a very strategic and central space in the future. In the meantime we will continue to work on improving the information and resources available through the website and finding ways to consolidate the work that has been done over the years in promoting the concept of free, fair and open trade through markets, just contracts and real currencies and opening possibilities for everyone to participate in some way.

Hajj Amal Douglas