LONDON- 4 July 2002 - 374 words

Kids design winning snakes for Hampton Court garden show

Four ten-year-olds from across the country have won a national competition to design the skins of four giant snakes which are on display in Christian Aid's 'Trading Places' Garden at this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

The winners are: Bernadette Trowse from West Moseley in Surrey, Billy Bowers from Southhampton, Samantha Wickets from Newquay, Cornwall and Matthew Waring from Henlow in Bedfordshire.

'It was a very big surprise for me to win. All my friends entered too, so when my teacher announced it to the class I was a bit embarrassed, because I was really pleased,' said Bernadette Trowse of Surrey. 'I used all my favourite colours, basing the design on wheels - because we had just bought a new car.'

A design by one runner-up, Billy Fowler from Long Eaton, so impressed the judges that they have put it on display in the garden's information hut.

Christian Aid's innovative show garden, which takes the form of a giant game of snakes and ladders, highlights the plight of Brazilian Farmers and reveals how current International Trade Rules are worsening their situation.

The 'Trading Places' garden focuses on the difficulties faced by Brazilian Farmers who struggle to acquire land to grow produce because of the injustice of land-ownership in a country where one percent of farmers own 47 percent of the arable terrain.

Christian Aid hopes that the garden will help to raise awareness of the work it does to support the Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST - Movimento Sem Terra). The MST was formed in the early 1980s in response to the increasingly unfair land-ownership situation in Brazil. Today more than 250,000 families have won land titles to over 15 million acres after MST land occupations. Trading Places hopes to bring attention to their struggle to gain land and secure their livelihood.

Claire Whitehouse, the garden's designer gained much of her inspiration for the garden when she recently visited Brazil with Christian Aid. Her planting plan is based on the plants she discovered on the trip, including cash-crops grown for export as well as home-grown produce grown for the farmers' families to eat and sell in local markets.

For more information on the show visit Christian Aid's website at http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/


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