Oil Drum Wall Art from Haiti

It’s heart warming to see the contribution being made by so many people to the relief effort for Haiti.

A concern, of course, is what happens after the media attention switches to another story, when the relief agencies have another crisis to rush….when people just forget and move on.

That’s why Fair Trade is so critical. Fair Trade is not about short-term fixes and fire-fighting (important though those things are); Fair Trade IS about empowering communities to make a difference in the long term, to break their cycle of poverty.

At Global Fayre we don’t have many products from Haiti, but what we do have is simply stunning, especially the oil drum wall art. The cut metal ironwork from Croix des Bouquets, a small village outside of Port-au-Prince is one of Haiti’s most original art forms.  In the early 1930s Georges Liautaud formed imaginative cemetery crosses from recycled metal cut from oil drums. An artistic tradition has grown from those humble beginnings and now the village has become a center for this art, with more than 60 workshops.

Cut metal artisans cut open 55-gallon drums, hammer them flat, and then mark designs on the black metal with chalk. Using a hammer and chisel, they pound and cut through the metal to make designs. Some are left black, others are painted with bright colors.

We source our oil drum wall art from the Haitian Committee of Artisans (CAH). Since 1972, the nonprofit CAH has marketed and exported crafts made by Haitian artisans, cooperatives and craft groups. The craftspeople whose work CAH promotes have organized themselves in a variety of ways. Some are cooperative associations, some are family workshops and some are independent artisans; all depend on the efforts of CAH to market their handicrafts for a fair wage. In 1999 CAH became part of the “Fondation pour le Developpement de l’Artisanat Haitien.” CAH provides marketing and promotional expertise, other sections provide training for artisans and reference resources on handicrafts.

Here’s just a few examples:

These pieces are available in our store at 324 S Campbell, Springfield, MO and online at www.globalfayre.com.

You’ll find the Haiti pieces here.

20% of the proceeds from these beautiful works of art is being contributed to relief agencies working in Haiti.

First Friday at Global Fayre……presenting John Long!

We’re really fortunate to have John Long join us for February’s First Friday Art Walk.

John Long was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1950 & was first exposed to the music he’d make his life’s work not long after. By the late 1950s John was absorbing the sounds of Homesick and Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Buster Brown, Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Junior Parker, and all the rest of the R&B and jump blues of the day, & working on recreating those sounds with his own guitar.

On Lost & Found, his debut album on Delta Groove Records, John Long stunningly re-created the sound of a pre-war country blues player, right down to the little Tommy Johnson-like upward vocal swoops he takes at the end of phrases.

Details:

Where: Global Fayre, 324 S Campbell Ave, Springfield, MO 65806

When: Feb 5th, 6pm onwards

Admission: Free (donations welcome, all proceeds will go to the Global Fayre Kiva Loan Fund)

For more information about the First Friday Art Walk, go to www.ffaw.org

Bundles of Divine in a Baby Bolga Basket

We just added some bundles of Divine chocolate to our online store.

It gives you the chance to sample no less than 8 (EIGHT!) different flavors from Divine. The bars of 3.5oz chocolate come in a wicker basket as standard, or you can upgrade to a beautiful baby bolga basket, also from Ghana.

Here’s a bit of background about Divine (courtesy of their website):

The story starts in 1879 when Tetteh Quarshie first brought cocoa to Ghana from Equatorial Guinea. Since then, Ghanaian cocoa has developed a global reputation for its quality and its taste. Today it is one of the country’s main exports. Ghana is the second largest exporter of cocoa in the world. Most of the cocoa is grown by small-scale family farmers on 4-5 acres of land. Cocoa farming is a precarious business. The trees are vulnerable to various diseases and pests and although chocolate is one of the world’s favorite treats, the cocoa price often dips below the level at which it pays enough for cocoa small-scale farmers to survive.

In the early 1990’s, the cocoa market in Ghana become partially liberalized, allowing for the formation of licensed buying companies to purchase cocoa beans from farmers and sell them to Cocoa Marketing Company that would continue to be the single exporter of Ghana cocoa. A number of farmers, including a visionary farmer representative on the Ghana Cocoa Board, Nana Frimpong Abrebrese, came to realize that they had the opportunity to organize farmers in an industry where their voices were not being heard and set up a licensed buying company that would be run by farmers and for their benefit. These farmers pooled resources to set up Kuapa Kokoo, a farmers’ co-op, which would trade its own cocoa, and thus manage the selling process more efficiently than the government cocoa agents. Kuapa Kokoo – which means good cocoa growers – has a mission to empower farmers in their efforts to gain a dignified livelihood, to increase women’s participation in all of Kuapa’s activities, and to develop environmentally friendly cultivation of cocoa.

Kuapa Kokoo quickly developed a reputation for being fair and honest. In Ghana, the cocoa scale and control of the scale is tremendously important. A cocoa farmer can easily be robbed by unscrupulous clerks that rigged the scales to cheat farmers out of the full value of their crop. Kuapa Kokoo put power over the scales in the hands of farmers by making sure that each village had its own scale and its own elected clerk or village recorder. Further, through its commitment to Fair Trade and sale of cocoa to the Fair Trade market, Kuapa Kokoo was able to return greater benefits to cocoa farmers. Its membership quickly grew. In 1997, at their annual general meeting, the farmers of Kuapa Kokoo voted to set up a chocolate company of their own in order to return even more benefits to cocoa farmers. And with investment from The Body Shop and Twin Trading, and support from Comic Relief and Christian Aid, Divine Chocolate was born.

Divine Chocolate is today a leading Fair Trade brand in the UK and a pioneer in the world of socially responsible enterprise. The success of Divine means that farmers have a secure source of Fair Trade income that continues to grow year on year. Kuapa Kokoo has invested its Fair Trade income in building schools, sinking wells for clean drinking water to villages, providing mobile medical clinics for farmers in remote growing regions, and fostering women’s income generation projects to help women earn additional income for their families when the cocoa season is over. The farmers’ ownership stake in Divine Chocolate means that Kuapa Kokoo has a meaningful input into decisions about how Divine is produced and sold. In addition, Kuapa Kokoo receives a share in the profits from their ownership shares and in 2007 celebrated the first distribution of dividends from Divine in the UK. To further its mission and further increase benefits for cocoa farmers, Divine Chocolate launched a US company to expand into $13 billion American market. In 2006, Divine Chocolate Inc opened in Washington DC to bring fantastic Fair Trade chocolate to US consumers. The farmers of Kuapa Kokoo own one-third of Divine Chocolate in the US.

Latest Kiva loan from Global Fayre

We’re always excited to reach the point of making another Kiva loan. Of course Haiti is heavy on our minds at the moment – all the more reason to get excited about being able to make another micro-loan. These loans are making a substantial long-term difference to the borrowers and their community.

Our newest loan is to Benita Lopez and her group.

Benita Lopez is from the village of Villa Concepcion, Cauayan City, Isabela. She is 52 years old. Benita is the group leader of a fifteen-member group loan offered by ASKI. While each member of the group receives an individual loan, they are all collectively responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members if someone is delinquent or defaults.

Benita is married and has two adult children. She owns and operates a business selling bananas and vegetables. She has been engaged in her business for over twenty-six years and earns approximately 1,000 PHP a week.

In 2008, Benita joined ASKI to gain access to financial services to help improve her living situation and her ability to engage in business activities. She is requesting a new loan of 20,000 PHP which will be used to purchase more products to sell. This loan will be her fourth from ASKI. She plans to use the additional revenue generated from the business to improve and expand her business.

About ASKI:
ASKI is one of the most successful microfinance institutions in the Philippines. It has twenty-one branches covering the Central and Northeastern areas. Its clients are mostly of farmers, fisherfolk and small entrepreneurs.

Fair Trade and the fun of working directly with producer groups

One of the unexpected delights of working in the world of Fair Trade has been the opportunity to work on customized products with our producer groups. Unexpected, because as a retailer we source our products primarily through importer/wholesalers who have the direct relationship with the producers.

However, in several cases now we’ve been able to work through the importer to request custom products (we talked about this before when we launched the vegan market baskets from Ghana).

Our latest adventure in product design has been in the world of finger puppets, working with our friends at Inca Kids.

Since we are based in Springfield, natural habitat of the Red Cardinal (and home of the Springfield Cardinals!) it seemed obvious to have some Red Cardinals made…..this is how they turned out:

The next major event coming to downtown Springfield is the 30th Annual Saint Patricks Day Parade, so now we’re scratching our heads thinking about what finger puppets we should have made……ideas anyone?!

Kiva Update

Logged in to Kiva today to see how things are going – here’s what I read…..isn’t it incredible?!

Thanks Kiva Lenders! You’ve funded EVERY loan on the site!!

To date, Kiva has enabled lenders to send $112,245,860 to entrepreneurs in need around the world.

Currently, thanks to Kiva’s lender community, all loans have been fully funded. Our team is working with Kiva’s Field Partners around the globe to add new loans to Kiva.

Kiva – the perfect last-minute Holiday gift!

Things have been crazy in the store for the past few weeks (which is a good thing!) so tonight we took an overdue “time out” to re-invest some Kiva funds. If you’re not familiar with Kiva, it’s a person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

We’ve been supporters of/investors in Kiva for a few years now (it fits closely with our mission for Global Fayre and our support for Fair Trade) and started the Global Fayre Kiva lending team a few months ago, though in truth we’ve not had time to develop it much, aside fomr using a couple of First Friday Art Walks to raise funds to invest.

So, the three loans we made today were:

Luis (Peru) who has a construction business (STILL NEEDS FUNDS). Here’s what Kiva syas about Luis:

Luis is 26 years old and lives in his own home with his common law wife and their two year old child. After finishing high school, he started working in order to meet the needs of his family. He started in the construction business and became very good in this type of work. He currently works as a contractor for clients who are in need of his services. Luis has developed a good reputation. Likewise, he and his wife work together in their partnership. Luis is grateful that he is always able to find work. For this reason, he hopes to have better tools so that he can provide better service. This is his first loan with MFP. Luis promises to be punctual with each of his payments. The money he requested will be used to purchase a few of the tools that he is lacking that will help him to develop in his work.

Five Virgins Group (Ghana) with a clothing sales business (FULLY FUNDED).

Toyin Okunlola (Nigeria) with a food business (STILL LOOKING FOR FUNDS). Kiva says:

Toyin sells frozen foods at retail prices to her customers. She has 2 deep freezers that she uses to store her frozen foods. This is the high season for sales and she hopes to make more profits during this season. She has been in this business for 6 years. The demand for her frozen foods is high. She hopes to own a poultry farm in the future.
Toyin is 44 years old and married with 2 children. She lives in Lagos state, Nigeria. She hopes for a loan of NGN 100,000 to purchase more frozen food to sell. She says thanks to all Kiva lenders.

If you haven’t made a Kiva loan before, PLEASE DO! Our tip would be to think about the region you want to invest in, scan several loans before making a decision, and always consider the field partner as well as the loan applicant to give yourself a sense of their ability to repay.

If you HAVE made a Kiva loan before, then please think about making another one.

BETTER STILL – you have the chance to make those last minute Holiday gifts with Kiva. Go to www.kiva.org and purchase gift certificates for your loved ones to make their own Kiva loans.

Happy Holidays!

Making Progress

Saturday was a crazy day at Global Fayre - way busier than any day we have had before.

Being a ‘for-profit’ store, sales revenues are obviously important for us. But the real thrill factor on Saturday was the number of people that had clearly made the decision to be concious consumers for a significant part of their holiday shopping. In coming to Global Fayre they were showing their commitment to a number of things:

1 – Fair Trade. Awareness of Fair Trade in the Springfield area is definately growing. Hopefully we’ve played a part in this, but there are plenty of other people out there making great efforts to promote the concept too. Just the fact that we participated in 8 Fair Trade events this fall, compared to just one last year, is a good indication of our progress.

2 – Downtown Springfield. It hasn’t been an easy year for downtown Springfield. Seems like we’ve lost more stores than we have gained. BUT – it’s been great to see much more foot traffic and a growing number of downtown regulars. Feels like the growth of retail is lagging way behind the level of demand from customers.

3 – Buying Local. As a Fair Trade store selling products from all over the world, the ‘buy local’ concept is an interestting one for us. We started at a Farmers Market on C-Street, and we are passionate supporters of local production. What comes through from our customers is that they recognise us as a local store, plus they value our knowledge of the artisans that produce the products we carry; it really is a wonderful aspect of Fair Trade that you can feel closely connected to a group of weavers that live half way around the world.

All this to say that two years after opening Global Fayre it feels like we have started to make our home here in the downtown district of Springfield Missouri. We’re grateful to the community here for opening their hearts and minds to Global Fayre and Fair Trade. We’re also looking forward to playing our part in the continued development of downtown Springfield in the years to come.

Finger Puppets from Peru, made by the Bridge of Hope Fair Trade Project

We’re busy putting things out on the shelves as the holiday season gets in to full swing.

We’ve always had a good selection of finger puppets, but we’ve just unpacked two adorable sets from the the Bridge of Hope Fair Trade Project in Peru.

One is Noah’s Ark: Ten darling hand-knit finger puppets representing Noah’s family and animals fit inside a zippered cotton ark pouch.

The other is an Amazon theme, with eight hand-knit rainforest finger puppets that come in an embroidered bag. Includes a monkey, sloth, anteater, macau, caiman, jaguar, turtle and snake.

The Bridge of Hope Fair Trade Project grew out of the efforts of a network of Peruvian organizations called Joining Hands Against Poverty who are committed to addressing the root causes of poverty in Peru.  Working with women who had no stable income and communities where gifted artisans lived in extreme poverty, they saw the need to create opportunities so that the women and artisans could benefit economically and socially from their work.  The Bridge of Hope project was launched to respond to that need.

Bridge of Hope works with 24 artisan organizations in poor neighborhoods of Lima as well as rural areas of Peru. They assist people living in extreme poverty to form groups that can develop sustainable businesses using the values of Fair Trade. The goal is to help them become independent, successful exporting association of artisans through assistance in the areas of product development, business skills, and export procedures. The work of Bridge of Hope has benefited many artisan groups, and the increased economic security has contributed to the empowerment of women in their homes and communities.

Soccer World Cup; South Africa 2010

When we settle in to our comfy armchairs to watch something like the soccer World Cup, it’s all too easy to miss what’s going on behind the scenes.

Check out this article for some disturbing food for thought:

http://www.newint.org/columns/currents/2009/11/01/street-people/