Penguin Rucksack and Pencil Case

This is perfect for any little person you know who may be starting school or playschool - delightful hand-embroidered cotton rucksack and matching pencil case set. Made at St. Mary's, India, who offer computer literacy classes for their employees' children and so improve their prospects for the future.

In 1954, a group of Dominican nuns arrived in Ahmedabad to start a hospital. Ahmedabad was an industrial city, producing textiles, but when the mills began to close many men lost their jobs and women became the sole earners. As a result, the nuns organised a sewing/embroidery centre where women use traditional skills to make fair trade handicrafts. The women at St Mary's also have access to medical help, savings schemes, cooking classes and scholarships for children. 

Available for next day despatch from our online store

R is also for Recycled

R is also for Recycled and there is a wide variety of fair trade goods available made from recycled goods. For example, you can buy recycled bowls, jewellery, pens, pencils and even laptop bags from recycled rubber.

We are particularly fond of these two bowls made in India from recycled aluminium. Either would provide a great talking point as a gift at a Christmas dinner party.



Square Platter made from recycled aluminum



Black and White Swirl Dip Tray alsofrom recycled aluminum



A – Z Guide to a Fair Trade Christmas – L is for Light

Candles certainly do their part in creating a Christmas atmosphere in your home.  This Tree Tealight is very popular this year and would look lovely in your home.  

It is made of polished aluminum by Noah’s Ark in India.  You can purchase it online from our store here.

A – Z Guide to a Fair Trade Christmas – J is for Jewellery Box

A Jewellery Box makes a nice gift for Christmas and there is a lovely fair trade selection available starting at just €19.95.  Made in India you can choose from boxes made from saris, or silk and skilfully decorated with embroidery. They are all beautifully finished inside. A good reason for purchasing fair trade items like this is to create a demand which helps to keep ancient craft skills alive within the communities of indigenous people.  

A – Z Guide to a Fair Trade Christmas – F is for Friendship

F is for Friendship and our Friendship Bowl makes an ideal Christmas present for someone you are close to. Outstretched arms envelop this lovely polished alluminun bowl, perfect for sharing fruit or treats

The bowl is made by Noah’s Ark in India. Noah's Ark was established to provide welfare and better living conditions for very poor artisans in the villages of Moradabad, India. Besides fair wages and business support, Noah's Ark provides life insurance, medical and a facility for child education. Through their profits, they are building a school to provide free education to the children who work in the fields of Moradabad. Noah's Ark is also associated with Indian Society of Deaf and Indian Every Home Crusade. Noah’s Ark has recently joined IFAT, the International Fair Trade Association, and currently, over 90% of their sales are to IFAT members. Noah’s Handicrafts and Welfare Society provides free nutrition, medical services and basic education for artisans and their families. Thirty-five artisan groups, representing 280 full-time artisans are working with Noah’s Ark.

Noah’s Ark seeks to enable artisan groups to become established enough to purchase their own machinery and raw materials. These groups can then continue to market and export their handicrafts through Noah’s Ark. As the businesses become more self-sufficient, Noah’s Ark takes on new families. Since their inception, about 20 workshops have become independent.

These bowls always selll out quickly and are available to purchase online.

A – Z Guide to a Fair Trade Christmas – E is for EMA

EMA or the Equitable Marketing Organisation is based in Kolkata in India. EMA has been trading fairly for over 30 years. Production takes place at a Development Centre on the outskirts of Kolkata, where almost 200 artisans work, 30 of whom are disabled. The artisans are provided with food and lodging and work in a safe environment from Tuesday to Saturday. They make our leather document wallets which are available in black and red.

The 'shanti' or goat leather comes from Chennai in India. When EMA receives the raw material it is examined thoroughly for its thickness, smoothness and most importantly for tick marks. The leather is then cut, the design embossed, painted, glazed, stitched, lined and lacquered to prevent fading by sunlight. The result is lovely soft leather which is beautifully finished.

The document bag, available in either black or red, is decorated with a 'holding hands' design. There is ample room to fit your A4 documents and folders and all the important features such as inside pockets and mobile phone pocket have thought of.

You can purchase them in our online store

The A – Z Guide to a Fair Trade Christmas

Today, we are going to begin our A – Z Guide to a Fair Trade Christmas and we are going to kick off with A for Asha.

Asha Handicrafts who are based in Mumbai in India are a wonderful example of Fair Trade Organisation and produce a wonderful selection of goods suitable for Christmas Gifts. You can choose fair trade gifts such as a shopping bag for Mother made from camel leather or a carved spectacles holder for Dad. (The spectacles holder was a surprise best seller last year and we are adding another design in the next few days.)

Asha have been practicing Fair Trade since 1975, even before the concepts of Fair Trade became popular abroad. Asha in Sanskrit means 'hope' and Asha have brought hope by providing a marketing outlet to the individual craftsmen. Asha is an association of voluntary businessmen dedicated to helping craftsmen, financially, ecologically and spiritually though its welfare centre and interrelated programs. The team of Asha welfare workers are stationed at different producer groups and cooperatives and move closely with them and their family sharing skills, extending medical help and education. Technical training is also provided to increase efficiency and productivity to encourage the growth and development of cottage industries.

You can view our selection of products from Asha here.

Why Fair Trade is Good for Women

It is International Women's Day and inequality is still a serious problem in the world. We know this because 70% of the one billion people living on less than a dollar a day are women.*

• Women work 66% of the world’s working hours

• While only earning 10% of the world’s income

• Over 66% of the world’s 876 million illiterate people are women

• More than 80% of the world’s estimated 40 million refugees are women and children

• Women own less than 1% of the world’s property

Fair trade transforms lives and it is good for women. It gives them opportunities to work that would not otherwise be available. For women this means clean water, education and food for their families. We are very proud to say that the majority of the goods we sell are produced by women and we are very proud to be supporting the wonderful organisations which bring these goods to market.

Motif operating in Bangladesh since 1998 is a good example. The women making Motif products, such as fair trade jewellery are marginalised for reasons more than poverty. Some are former prostitutes; others have been affected by leprosy or other wasting diseases; some may have been divorced or abandoned - each situation scars women with a stigma that reduces their chance of decent employment. Employment at Motif daily provides a 'safe place' where they can share with other women and be earning at the same time. Many also take materials home, working when daily chores are put down. All enjoy the camaraderie together.

India. St Mary’s Mahila Shikshan Kendra is a women’s handicraft organization run by the Dominican Sisters in Gomtipur, Ahmadabad. This area of Ahmadabad, once known for its textile mills, suffered much unemployment since global competition closed the mills in the 1980s. It continues to attract landless labourers who come searching for work. Artisans of St. Mary’s create mirrorwork embroidery in the tradition of the Kathiawadis, a craft more than a thousand years old. The artisans of St. Mary’s share in decision–making and project responsibilities. St. Mary’s markets 20 percent of its products in India; the rest are sold abroad. The organization runs a dispensary and maternity clinic that caters to the poor and marginalized women of the area around St. Mary’s. It also runs health programs, a savings program, sewing education and children’s education programs. Since 1970, their embroidery program has provided employment for women of the area. St. Mary’s is intentionally a mix of Christian, Hindu and Muslim artisans working together. During 2002 religious riots in Gujarat state, St. Mary’s, with its history of religious understanding, became a refuge for many from the chaos and violence.

In the Philippines nearly 800 households were displaced from their homes by a major hydro-electric project. A co-operative was specifically set up to provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for families and communities displaced from their homes. The co-operative producing lovely fair trade jewellery is made up of sixty women.

These organisations are just a small example of how fair trade helps women. We also sell products made by and empowering women in Peru, Nepal and Vietnam

According to the Fair Trade Federation, seventy percent of Fair Trade artisans are women, many of whom are the sole wage-earners in their homes. Unlike most jobs that women might hold in manufacturing where they are forced to travel great distances and work long hours in dangerous conditions, a woman’s participation in a Fair Trade cooperative is about more than just her production capacity. Fair Trade allows women to provide for their families, educate their sons and their daughters and strengthens communities.

*Statistics quoted from http://www.concern.net/


March 8th is International Women's Day

Further reading:  World Fair Trade Organisation, International Women's Day Section

August 19th is World Humanitarian Day.

Established by the General Assembly (GA) of the United Nations in December 2008, 19 August 2009 is the first World Humanitarian Day. The designation of the Day is a way to increase public understanding of humanitarian assistance activities worldwide. The Day also aims to honour humanitarian workers who have lost their lives or been injured in the course of their work.

Why 19 August? - Six years ago, on 19 August 2003, the United Nations office in Iraq was bombed and 22 people lost their lives. Among them was Sergio Vieira de Mello, at that time the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Iraq. While there have been many other fatal incidents involving humanitarian personnel the General Assembly decided to use the anniversary of this incident as World Humanitarian Day.

We would like to mark World Humanitarian Day by mentioning a couple of our producers engaged in humanitarian service:

St. Mary’s, Ahmadabad, India
St. Mary’s Mahila Shikshan Kendra, is a non profit Women’s Handicraft Organization run by the Dominican Sisters of the Rosary in Gomtipur, Ahmadabad since 1970. They are committed to the development of economically and socially marginalized women in Gomtipur, a slum pocket of Ahmadabad. St. Mary’s aims to give employment with fair wages to women of Gomtipur from minority social, cultural and religious groups. Working together as a group in the Centre the women develop a sense of community.

St. Mary’s concentrates mainly on hand embroidery in cotton; using their indigenous craftsmanship, these women immigrants produce high quality mirror work and embroidery in traditional designs. Their products include cushion covers, letter boxes, bags, purses, bed spreads, table cloths and Christmas presents.By adhering to very high standards of quality control, they try their best to inspire in them a deep sense of self-respect and integrity of character, earning their own hard earned wages without any trace of pity or condescension, thus bringing them in touch with their own basic human dignity. Besides their rightful wages, all surplus profits or producer dividends are shared with the women.

The Sisters also have a dispensary, a maternity clinic and Medical centre called ‘St. Mary’s Nursing Home’, they run health programmes, saving schemes, loans especially for educational and health purposes, a government recognised course for women in sewing, embroidery and design and also educational scholarships for their children. They ensure that the women send their children to school and educate them and avoid child labour. In many cases when the women are incapable of paying the fees, and educating their children especially the girls they help them by paying their fees etc.

The Esther Benjamin’s Trust, India and Nepal

In 2002 the EBT sent research teams to the 30 major Indian circuses. At great personal danger, teams identified 232 children under the age of 14, 82% of them girls and nearly all Nepalese. Most of the children had been trafficked at the age of 8 or 9 (although some had been as young as 5). They told how their village communities had been preyed upon by professional agents who had tricked their impoverished and illiterate parents into handing them over to the circus for just a few dollars.

Thumbprints on documents that the naïve parents could not read condemned their children to an 18-hour per day, seven days per week routine for the next 10 to 15 years. Inadvertently they were also handing over their children to a life of malnourishment, harsh training schedules and vicious beatings by the circus staff. Frequently the girls would also be sexually assaulted.

Bold rescue teams were sent to confront the circus owners and use all legal means on the ground to secure freedom. This high-risk process led to the release of over 200 trafficking victims during the period 2003 - 2006. The youngest children who return from the circuses can mostly - and safely - be reunited with their parents and join school at an appropriate age.

For the older girls who might lack the academic ability or interest in joining formal education there is a skills training project to help them get back on their feet and gain an independent life, however, it has became evident that securing jobs for the returnees is virtually impossible due to the social stigma associated with being trafficked. So in 2005, instead of trying to secure outside employment for the girls the EBT, in conjunction with Hatti Trading (UK) set up a handbag production centre under Fair Trade conditions to provide a realistic economic alternative to being re-trafficked.

The Esther Benjamin’s Trust and the charity is on hand to look out for the girls’ welfare, but the production centre is now an independent entity.

What wasn't anticipated at the time was the impact it would have on the girls who worked there; suddenly, they transitioned from being ‘charity cases’ to independent professional young women working for a foreign organisation. Their self esteem went through the roof; finally they could hold their head up high when asked what they do. At the same time there was a move to a new premises so the locals had no knowledge of what they had come from, and the girls could at last truly move on from their past. A selection of these beautifully made bags are sold by Arusha Fair Trade.

You might be interested in reading more about the Esther Benjamin’s Trust and their work with children and young girls rescued from Indian circus: http://www.ebtrust.org.uk/.