Fairtrade is brilliant.

It gives me loads of satisfaction to be able to buy a product from a shop and know that the money I've spent is going to the right places. Through Fairtrade certification, workers who have been part of production are paid fairly for the work they've done and the money is distributed to benefit local communities as a whole. So when companies decide to go Fairtrade with their products, such as Cadbury with Dairy Milk in 2009, it literally changes lives.

It's important that we recognise the responsibility we have as consumers in what we choose to buy. As far away as the people who actually produce our stuff seem, we have a direct relationship with them through this choice. It's always tempting to go for the cheapest option (and as a student I can definitely relate to this) but in many cases choosing to buy as cheap as possible means that people further down the supply chain don't see the benefits. When we decide to pick up ethical products we're showing the manufacturers that fair pay matters and that any member of God's creation should be treated with dignity. My fingerprints make an impact on the fingerprints that made my product.

There are many brilliant Fairtrade options available for the food and clothing industries but one area of manufacture in which there aren't is technology. Being one of the largest and most competitive industries around the world, there are thousands of workers involved in the manufacturing process, from those who mine the basic materials to assembly line workers who construct different bits of tech. Almost everyone in the modern world owns a mobile phone, so I would love to see the money people pay for their phones going to the right people. One of the ways this can be done is through using Fairtrade-certified gold, so that's what I'm aiming to do with The Fingerprint Project.

We want to use our power as consumers to tell manufacturers that owning an ethical phone is important to us. We want to be proud of the fingerprints that are on our products. We know that using Fairtrade gold in phones is a possibility and can absolutely transform gold mining communities, so we want to ask manufacturers to make this change. Together we're going to email the CEO's of technology companies on mass asking them to make the gold in their phones Fairtrade. 

In Amos 5 God calls us to "satisfy the needs of the oppressed", which shows us how important it is that we stand up for those trapped in poverty and exploitation. Let's live up to this calling: let's be advocates for fairness and mark our own fingerprints for change.

Luke, 19, Southampton Uni is an Emerging Influencer with Tearfund Rhythms. You can sign his petition and get involved in the Fingerprint Project here or follow on facebook and twitter