Global Groovin'
Our Thriving Earth: A Fair Trade Story
The 3 Big Problems Fair Trade Solves
“Don’t tell people what you do, tell them what problems you solve.” ~Ian Altman
This quote popped up on one of our Facebook pages last week, and it really got us thinking. It’s easy to tell people that we’re a Fair Trade company, or that we produce lifestyle products with artisans in Thailand and Nepal.
But it’s harder for people to see beyond those neat little descriptions to what problems a business like Global Groove Life really solves.
As we’ve reflected on before, Fair Trade is really about the people. We deliver great products, but we’re all about the people who create them.
When it boils down to it, we see being part of the Fair Trade movement as solving 3 key problems:
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Helping to preserve the cultural integrity of producers
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Helping producers and their communities to overcome financial insecurity
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Helping to create frameworks for small businesses that enable producers to become independent and successful.
Let’s break those down.
Helping to preserve the cultural integrity of producers
Around the world, it’s more and more common that the cultural heritage of small communities is being eroded. The coinciding increase of global tourism and use of the Internet have meant that people who were once completely isolated from the world at large are now right in the thick of things.
Put yourself in that position.
It’s hard to protect your traditions, beliefs and cultural history when you’re suddenly under a microscope, and everyone in your village is being forced to leave the land your culture is built on, in order to migrate to the cities to scrape together a living.
But when you are working with a Fair Trade agreement, you are no longer faced with the stark choice of tearing yourself away from your culture so that you can survive.
Your basic needs are cared for, and so you are able to stay in your village, investing in the local economy and continuing to be involved in your traditional way of life.
You are not exposed to the soul-destroying loneliness of moving away from everyone and everything you know for a pittance, working for a corporate client who doesn’t care about your conditions, or that all your traditional knowledge is starting to disappear the longer the people in your community are away from each other.
Helping producers and their communities to overcome financial insecurity
When we first met Dia, she was in a flurry. Life had been going fine, but just recently her husband had been in accident. He was unable to walk, and needed urgent medical attention. Without his income from his job as a driver, their family, previously comfortable, was suddenly in dire straits.
For many producers around the world, things are just fine, but a single event can knock everything off-kilter. They make enough money to feed their families, keep everyone clothed, and maybe even to enjoy the odd indulgence.
But if the family’s main earner gets sick or has an accident, the future becomes bleak extremely quickly.
These days, Dia is one of our master tailors. She manages a team of women, and her work provides a steady income for her family.
Her co-op produces all of Global Groove Life's ball cover collection as well as cushion covers and zafu cushions.
Her Fair Trade contract guarantees that she makes a comfortable living - that allows her to put a little aside for a rainy day. She has now picked up enough customers through her Fair Trade contacts that she’s safe from the unexpected.
This is because a Fair Trade agreement gives the producer a deposit to create their orders. The onus is not on the producer to come up with the funds for all the materials before they’ve been paid - which is the opposite of how most larger corporate businesses do it.
Large corporations not only expect producers to front all the costs, but they will often catch producers out in fine print: If an order is running late, the producer will be charged a fee for every extra day. If stock doesn’t sell, or a customer returns it, the producer won’t be paid for those items.
This creates an extremely stressful situation for the producer, because all the risk is on them, and there is no leeway for life to happen. If someone gets sick, has a baby, totals their bike… it all comes crashing down and the producer is completely exposed.
Fair Trade protects producers from these lose-lose situations, and guarantees them reasonable conditions for fulfilling their orders.
Helping to create frameworks for small businesses that enable producers to become independent and successful.
Many producers have little formal education. They’re talented, hard-working and resourceful, but it’s often the case that they haven’t been exposed to the frameworks that make running a business simple and sustainable.
Having a Fair Trade contract in place helps them to meet people who can teach them how to systemise their businesses, and who can give them valuable insights into the markets the producer is trying to crack.
Bijay, who creates our wool felt products, started out with a little shop. He came up with all the designs, made them by hand, staffed the shop, sourced customers and trained new staff - all himself. Often in the same day. It’s the kind of activity that would terrify (or inspire!) a lesser creature.
Unfortunately, trying to do everything yourself handicaps the business.
Bijay was constantly exhausted, stressed and drained of creativity. He would lose designs and samples, customer orders would get confused, and while he wanted to grow the wholesale aspect of his business, he just couldn’t find the time.
When Bijay realised he could very simply systemise many aspects of his fledgling business, he saw that he would be able to scale up his output significantly. With some simple operating procedures & specifically trained staff, he is now able to focus on the high-leverage tasks of getting new wholesale customers and creating innovative new designs that his customers would be excited to purchase.
Fair Trade is about much more than providing a living wage.
While that’s a vital element, the practical application of a Fair Trade contract goes far deeper into the lives and businesses of the producers. It transforms individual lives, and can revive entire communities in one swoop. Those are the problems we help to solve, and we couldn’t be happier about it.
The Opportunities of Fair Trade
Fair Trade gets a bad rap sometimes. It gets dismissed as the efforts of a bunch of hippies trying to push their left-wing protectionist agenda on hard-working people who have their own problems to worry about. Many of the people who hold this opinion haven’t taken the time to delve into the complexities of Fair Trade.
Because in reality, that’s not it at all. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
You see, Fair Trade is not about making anyone look better than anyone else, or trying to guilt normal, hard-working people into buying particular things.
Fair Trade is all about the opportunities.
Obviously, the opportunities for farmers and artisans are huge:
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They get the chance to rise above endemic poverty, which they were born into and would likely never escape without a Fair Trade agreement on the table
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Not only do they raise themselves out of poverty, but they have the opportunity to break the cycle for good, raising their children in relative comfort and teaching them the skills necessary to provide a good life for their children when the time comes
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The people working in developing countries almost always have a deep sense of responsibility to their elders and the rest of their community. Just one or two producers can transform the fortune of an entire village by providing regular work and income to people who might otherwise not be able to earn.
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They get the chance to participate in local economics in a meaningful way. As more and more producers become self-sustaining, they can put more money towards sustaining their local environment and building up local infrastructure to strengthen their community’s economic position, reducing the risk of exploitation and degradation of the culture.
And it’s not just the people that produce Fair Trade goods that are exposed to greater opportunity.
For us, the people working in Fair Trade businesses, the opportunities are of a less material nature, but are no less significant:
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Working with Fair Trade producers means that our work is truly meaningful and creates real, tangible change in the world. We have the privilege of seeing what our hard work translates to - something many other business people are deprived of.
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We have the opportunity to teach our children about responsibility and awareness with concrete evidence of why it’s important, and the impact your choices have on the world around you
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The creeping sense of futility and emptiness of a life purely driven by the need to acquire ‘stuff’ is removed from our day-to-day. Every action we take and every resource expended has a purpose and creates positive change where it’s needed most.
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The opportunity to end the cycles of exploitation and unethical business behaviour is a huge responsibility, but it’s one we welcome with open arms. Raising awareness in the general community about how important their choices are, and highlighting when big companies are wreaking havoc on small communities, is an opportunity to take our place among the great names who have changed the world before us.
And for you, the buyer, there are opportunities too.
It can be hard in normal life to feel like you could ever make a difference. There are so many causes that need attention, so many people to help, and so much cynicism in the world that it’s easy to become paralysed.
Buying Fair Trade gives you the opportunity to overcome that crippling sense of impotence. It allows you to directly affect the fortune of another human for the better. It gives you the opportunity to shift economic focus in your country to more sustainable production practices, and to start to address the huge imbalances between your life and the life of the person who produced the item in your hand.