Store aids developing nations
Fair trade can significantly impact artisans in developing nations.
By MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. -- Looking out over steady traffic on the corner of Pa. Routes 158 and 208 in this rural small town is a veritable bazaar of international handicrafts.
Aptly named after an East-West trade route dating to 200 B.C., the Silk Road Fair Trade Market offers a chance for customers to improve life in developing nations by buying goods made by foreign craftsmen.
The chance to make such a difference motivated New Wilmington resident Wendy Farmerie to leave her job as an international buyer and start the store in July 2006.
She is a member of the New Wilmington Presbyterian Church, which operated the market for years on Saturday mornings out of the church's rooms. But it had outgrown its space and no more room was available in the church.
Farmerie, who was on the committee overseeing the market, decided to leave the corporate world and turn the church's project into a private enterprise, though she said the church and the local presbytery still provide "emotional support." The address is 115 N. Market St.
She explained that the principles of fair trade, a concept dating to the late 1980s, guarantee artisans fair wages, safe working conditions and paid overtime. Today, the concept of fair trade is becoming more well-known in the United States, though Farmerie said it is more familiar in Europe where there are entire cities devoted to buying fair-traded items.
Significance
Farmerie said fair trade can significantly impact artisans in developing nations. For example, she said that though a craftsman in Guatemala only makes 200 per year, having his or her goods sold through fair trade shops can significantly increase his income and standard of living. It is this sense of the inequity between the poverty of hardworking overseas craftsmen and the wealth of the U.S. that motivated her to quit her job and launch the local business.
"How can I sit here and not help?" she said. "Eight hundred fifty-two million people in the world are hungry. If my life isn't as comfortable as it used to be, I am still more comfortable than they are."
The walls of the shop are lined with goods from a variety of projects aiming not only to help support craftsmen, but to make peace among the poor caught in the midst of conflict.
Farmerie points, for example, to the popular Gahanian tote bags made by women in that country through an empowerment program which gives small loans to craftswomen, an effort sponsored by a recent Nobel Peace Prize winner. There are also baskets from a Rwandan project that makes co-workers out of women who lost their husbands in recent genocidal conflict -- and women whose husbands were the killers. Farmerie remarked that 75 percent of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide are women who previously kept to their homes but now must support themselves and participate in politics.
Other examples
Carved onyx from Pakistan is another craft produced as part of a peacemaking mission among rival ethnic groups there. In addition, there are finger puppets from Peru, wood carvings from Armenia, wooden bowls from Africa, purses made from silk scraps recycled from factories in Nepal, ceramics, baskets, jewelry, purses, toys, organic coffee, chocolate, scarves and velvet and many other items.
There are also numerous handcrafted Christmas ornaments -- including angels made from orange peels -- and many of the 50 Nativity sets she had in stock from 16 countries are still available.
She is trying to get more goods from Sudan although she said it is difficult to get goods out of that country because of political strife.
Farmerie said fair trade is not limited to foreign goods. The poor of the U.S. are also represented. She said that bean mixes, soaps and soups made by the poor and homeless in Denver and Chicago are also available from projects that teach job skills.
Further, principles of fair trade aim to preserve the environment. Proceeds from stuffed toy monkeys from Columbia are used to re-introduce primates into the wild to combat illegal trafficking in rain-forest animals there.
She said that 90 percent of the prices of her goods are set by the makers or the cooperatives which supply them. She explained this is because the philosophy of fair trade is not only to provide a fair wage to the craftsman, but also to limit the price paid by the consumer.
Farmerie said that consequently, her profit margin is lower than that of a traditional retail store and as a result, "This is about as selling as much as possible."
For more information about fair trade, visit fairtradefederation.com. The store is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays. For more information, call the shop at (724) 946-8502.