“Not by charity nor by sympathy, but by
our handwork and integrity, we shall strive for our dignity” — so reads a sign at the Ankur Kala workshop in
India.
To step into a Ten Thousand
Villages store is to discover a wonderland of world crafts. Lining the shelves are embroidered and
hand-printed textiles from India, handmade paper cards and journals from Nepal, exquisite stonework from
Kenya and Uganda, rugged Haitian cut-metal work, striking silver jewelry and Chulucanas pottery from Peru.
Each piece is handmade and each tells a story.
Among these myriad treasures one
finds beautifully wrought leather purses and wallets from the village of Madhyamgram, in India’s state of
West Bengal. There, Tarun Pal provides leadership and vision to a thriving leather workshop. It is a long way
from the park bench he once called home while living on the streets of Kolkata.
When I first meet Pal, I am
struck by the gravity of his presence. A large man and deep-voiced, he weighs each word carefully before
speaking. As he tells his remarkable story, however, a transformation occurs. His speech gains emphasis, his
hands move expressively and an inner light shines through.
Born and raised in Bangladesh,
Pal had been a gifted soccer player in high school with career prospects in the game. At the age of 18,
however, he ran away from home after experiencing family difficulties. “I came to Kolkata,” he says. “There,
I lived on the streets for two years. I had no money, no place to stay, no income. I would travel by train,
without ticket, sitting on the footboard.”
Pal was grateful to receive
training in leather work from a friend and within six months had founded his own small group. They had only
one machine and he created the samples himself, but the quality of his group’s work was quickly recognized by
the Craft Resource Centre (CRC), a fair trade export group based in Kolkata. CRC began placing orders and
providing product development support.
Today, Pal’s workshop employs
some 200 people, but at one time they were a handful of craftspeople lacking business experience, desperate
for a market for their products.
It is precisely from small
artisan groups like these that Ten Thousand Villages purchases crafts: Fledgling workshops with the potential
for growth; workshops that offer employment opportunities to marginalized communities and individuals;
craftspeople who, because of remote locations or lack of marketing know-how, otherwise have no market for
their products.
Crafting History
The project began in
1946 when American Edna Ruth Byler and her husband visited a sewing class in La
Plata, Puerto Rico. The class
had been established as an income-generation project by two Mennonite Central
Committee aid workers, who
distributed cloth and thread to local women to encourage traditional skills. Byler was asked to take $5 worth
of samples home to see if she could generate orders from friends and neighbours. Although she was initially
unsure how, when she gave a talk to a local sewing circle a few women placed orders. She soon found more
eager buyers and within five years had generated orders worth $30,000 for the women of the Puerto Rican
community.
When the volume of craft samples
exceeded the capacity of her car’s trunk, Byler set up a gift shop in the basement of her home. She took
samples with her to speaking engagements at church groups, women’s auxiliaries and sewing circles across
North America, and commissioned other volunteers to travel in their communities with sample
kits.
The project has evolved since
those early days. Ten Thousand Villages, Canada’s largest fair trade retailer, is now widely credited with
having given birth to the alternative trading movement. A diverse range of crafts from more than 30 countries
is available through retail stores across North America, but the vision remains essentially unchanged: To
create income opportunities for artisans in developing countries. The organization operates on the principle
of “Trade not Aid,” the conviction that real development happens not through handouts but through economic
opportunities.
Byler’s spirit of selfless
generosity continues to motivate the organization. Stores are staffed in large part by volunteers, many of
whom first discovered Ten Thousand Villages as customers and then fell in love with the crafts and the
stories of the people who made them. And in true grassroots fashion, community groups across the country
regularly organize craft sales in churches and on university campuses. Those who give of their time do so
because they feel truly connected to the mission and to the lives and creativity of craftspeople around the
world.
Relationships Matter
For those whose
livelihoods depend on handicrafts, security means knowing where their next paycheck will come from. By
promising long-term relationships with craftspeople, Ten Thousand Villages enables them to plan and save for
the future. Having reliable and consistent orders is a luxury not always afforded by mainstream business
practices.
Jose Sosa operates a pottery
workshop in Chulucanas, Peru. He describes how in 2007, he received a large order from a popular U.S.-based
retailer. To produce the required volume of product within the tight deadline given, and optimistic about the
future, he expanded both workshop and staff. The following year, however, the retailer placed a dramatically
smaller order and many of his employees were forced instead to seek factory work or turn to farming to
survive. Ten Thousand Villages provides an alternative to this kind of one-off purchasing practice by working
with artisan groups to increase order quantities at manageable rates.
Fair trade salaries guarantee
artisans higher payment than they are able to receive from local markets and none of the crafts are sold
on consignment. Rather, artisans are paid half of the price upfront when an order is placed to help cover the
purchase of materials and living expenses while crafts are produced. The remaining 50 per cent of the fee is
paid once orders are shipped, with Ten Thousand Villages covering the cost of any damaged or unsold
products.
The income is essential for many
of the artisans but the value of these relationships runs deeper. Besides providing above-average wages, many
fair trade groups also operate skills development, education and literacy programs so that families and
entire communities can benefit and grow. It is a better way of doing business.
Families Matter
An Indian craftswoman: “The
lives of my three children hang from the thread of my embroidery.”
Visiting Tarun Pal’s workshop, I
am immediately struck by the sense of community among the employees. There is a family dynamic at play that
is rare in any workplace. Pal is much more than merely an employer; one senses that he is also a brother and
a mentor to many of his employees. Shoma Guha, an employee in Pal’s workshop, explains how important the work
has been for her. “After 12 years of marriage, my husband died,” she says. “My children were seven and five
at the time. It was then that I began working. I have a plot of land, and on that land, with my income, I’ve
been able to build a house of my own. After the death of my husband, I had nothing. This job and the learning
that came with it gave me the inspiration to live. I have to be strong to bring up my children. If I am weak,
I won’t be able to do justice to them.”
Pal responds, “When I remember
what I went through, I want to help Shoma. I’ve had a difficult life, and I want to help her in her difficult
life.”
This sort of compassion is rare
in India’s leather industry where employment relationships are often short-lived; as the market fluctuates,
workers come and go. Here, most have been employed for more than 10 years. It is a community of trust and
respect that often reaches out to help others in need: When a neighbouring village experienced flooding,
employees loaded a boat with candles, materials and food for the victims. Pal’s life has been a remarkable
journey, from living on the streets of Kolkata to operating a workshop that provides security to so many.
When I ask what has motivated him, he answers: “I had hunger in my belly, I didn’t have any money. I get
shivers when I think back to those times. Hard days. Now, I tell my life story to my daughter. She is 16.
When I drive by the places where I used to stay on the park bench, I show them to my wife.
“My vision had been to make the
business grow and to create a bigger workshop. Now, my mission is not so much to grow as to sustain what we
have — to sustain the people who have been with me from the beginning and to share my sorrows and joys with
them.”
In these few words, Pal
perfectly communicates the essence of what makes fairly traded handicrafts so special. Every item expresses,
through the fi bre and knit and weave of its form, the human lives and relationships of the artist who has
made it.
Every craft has a soul.
•
Jonathon Bowman is a
writer from Ten Thousand Villages who visited artisans in India in September 2010.
Photo
Courtesy: Ten Thousand Villages
