Fair Trade Blog

As easy as it would be for us as American’s to feel sorry for ourselves after last week’s near melt down of our financial foundation, most of us still have a paycheck, a safe place to work, and pretty nice place to go home to at the end of the day. 

It’s easy to forget that there are lots of places in the world where people have none of the things I just mentioned.   They get up wondering about their safety and how to meet their daily needs. 

In times like these, a little perspective is good for the soul. 

Our government is regularly using the “T” word — as in trillion dollars – to describe the amount of money it will take to bail us out of our current financial mess.   It’s a number that bears little resemblence to any reality in our daily lives.  So how much is that really?  If you stacked up a trillion pennies, the stack would reach past the moon to a height of 986,426 miles. 

Back here on earth, let’s compare a trillion dollars to the amount of money it takes to sustain a worker in say, Kenya.   The living wage in that country is somewhere between $5-10 per day — so a worker there might be able to sustain themselves for a month on the cash you have in your wallet or purse right now.  

The national hangover from the housing bubble and our financial crisis will pass, and while there is probably more pain ahead, it teaches us once again that just because we can live beyond our means for a time, doesn’t mean we should.  

Shopping is not on many people’s minds in these tense days of serious financial reconsideration,  but we’re here when you want to join hands with artisans around the world to change the world – one purchase at a time. 

Purchasing Fair Trade products is one way to help end poverty around the world. There are a whole host of other ways, including charitable donations, but the latest and hottest trend is giving micro loans to impoverished entrepreneurs.  It’s something I’m considering doing myself.  

Micro loans are not new, but since Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi banker, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work through his Grameen Bank, the concept has achieved cache across the globe.  

Basically, micro loans are small amounts of money loaned to budding business people in impoverished parts of the world.  The amounts can range from the tens of dollars to a few hundred dollars.   The start ups can range from buying a cow for milking to purchasing a cell phone to provide communication services to a whole village.  

Micro loans have helped thousands build sustainable businesses and escape poverty.  The process is not without it’s critics, however.  

A recent New Yorker article points out that there is evidence that the micro loans are helping individuals stay out of poverty, but are not helping to build a middle class — a necessary step for entire countries like Bangladesh to emerge from poverty. 

This larger issue, say critics, is the so-called “missing middle.”  Credit has always been available to the wealthy, even in impoverished areas, and micro loans are allowing the poor to become self-employed in their own microbusinesses.  But credit is still scarce for middle class business people ready to build enterprises that employ others — business start-ups or expansions that require more than a few hundred dollars for a small factory, workshop, or storefront.  

Though its perhaps important to note this ”donut hole” of need, it seems to me to be a red herring.  Micro loans are designed to lift individuals out of poverty, not finance the next generation of employers.  Programs should be created to extend credit to larger enterprises that will create sustainable work for the poor.  Microfinance will not accomplish that goal.  

Kiva is one of the largest and best known non-profit orgs where you can make micro loans online.  Using their site, you can choose an entrepreneur and then help fund their loan request.  As with many other microfinance programs, Kiva does not collect interest on their loans for the investor, you simply get the principal back to reinvest or withdraw.  Another avenue is a direct donation to the Grameen Foundation which in turn provides micro loans. 

Some Fair Trade organizations offer micro loan programs as well.  A Greater Gift will provide your loan to their producing cooperatives to help them support their production, for example, by buying raw materials.  There are also micro loans programs that will generate a small return for your money.  

As with any investment there is risk involved,  so do your homework before you pull out your credit or debit card. 

Keep shopping your good values!

Kile

One of the great things about Fair Trade is that when you give fairly traded gifts for the holidays, you are really giving twice.   Your friends and family get beautiful handmade gifts from the far corners of the globe and you give to the artisans, workers, and growers with a living wage and sustainable work environment.  

Last week, I mentioned the Arghand soap from Afghanistan that we offer.   Well, it’s a prime example.   Many people have stopped by to pick out beautiful packages of soap to give as gifts.   The stone-shaped pieces of soap, made from local materials including mountain herbs and flowers and local oils from almonds and pomegranates, are a great gift for anybody, but those purchases also sustain men and women in that war-torn country. 

Each piece of soap represents hope for the future as they struggle to overcome decades of war and civil strife.  The people of Afghanistan are in desperate need of alternatives to poppy growing.  Unfortunately, the drug trade has taken center stage once again with record poppy crops under cultivation.  

Your fair trade gifts do have the potential to change the world.   Arghand soap is but a small part of the growing alternative of fairly traded products.  We have jewelry that gives living wages to artisans in Ecuador, furniture from salvaged hardwoods that save trees, coffee that sustains families in Ethiopia — and that’s just a small sample.  

So give fair trade for the holidays and give twice.

Keep shopping your good values! 

Kile