Through Oxfam, Glastonbury Festival employ more than 1700 volunteer stewards at each festival. The cost of employing the Oxfam stewards is given to Oxfam as a donation; on top of this Oxfam is one of the three main charities that benefit from ticket sales profit.

After the 2007 festival Melvin Benn, Director of Glastonbury Festival and Festival Republic approached Oxfam regarding donating £50,000 to a specific project in India. The Project that was chosen was helping to support cotton workers in southern India.

In April 2008 Melvin asked Festival Republic employee Julie Syer who is employed as Licence Co-ordinator at Glastonbury, to visit the farming and handloom projects in the Warangal and Nalgonda Districts of southern India to experience the projects first hand.

The projects were set up to help improve incomes, working conditions and quality of life for people working across the cotton industry, from encouraging the farming communities to work with organic farming techniques, to helping handloom weavers secure new markets and helping factory workers form co-operatives to speak up for their rights and challenge their appalling working conditions. 

Click here to read the project diary from Julie Syer