Trade As One

A good friend of ours, Shelton Green, has started a fair trade apparel company, Good and Fair Clothing, making apparel that has a fair trade supply chain from the farm to the factory. This is new territory in the fair trade world and Good and Fair is one of the first clothing companies to sell Fair Trade Certified goods.

Shelton has been a guest blogger for us in the past so it is possible you’ve heard his story, but it bears repeating as context for his launch of Good and Fair Clothing.

The Story of Good & Fair Clothing

Even in his favorite pair of jeans, Shelton Green just wasn’t comfortable.

He didn’t like the idea of people across the planet earning less than their work was worth for the sake of his tee shirts — or his button-downs or boxers. So he resolved in 2008 to go a year without buying clothes, rather than support an industry that often pays unfair wages to maximize its own profit. Now he’s doing his best to steer clear of the global problems linked to the mass production of “fast fashion.”  Continuing to keep that commitment isn’t always easy — like the time he had to buy a hoodie at a baseball game when the weather turned cold.

That’s why Shelton founded Good & Fair Clothing. Finding clothing options that are good to the earth and fair to people can be tough and he wanted to simplify the search. G&FC clothes are designed with organic materials from collar to cuff. They are creating a fair trade clothing line using environmentally sustainable methods and a visible supply chain. They are doing their part; using fair trade organic cotton from farmers around the world and using only Fair Trade Certified production in order to make their clothing. They want to make it easy to be good and fair.

We thought you’d enjoy seeing photos of Shelton’s last trip to India and see the real people and places behind Good and Fair!

I (Rachel) had the honor of making the very first purchase of underwear from Good and Fair and now I am happy to report that we are selling them at Trade as One. Check out the men’s boxers and women’s hipsters.

If you want to give a gift that is a triple blessing, this necklace from Light Gives Heat is it! Not only does the gift recipient get a beautiful paper bead necklace, the women in Uganda who make the necklaces get continued employment and a $4.00 donation is made from the sale of every {PINK} Classic Necklace to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation®.

Very versatile 48” recycled paper bead necklace- to wear long, doubled, or tripled! Each necklace is multi-colored and has it’s own unique assortment of flavors. The paper beads are lacquered so that they have a beautiful smoothness and shine. Each necklace has a single {PINK} ‘Hope’ bead and is packaged in a special edition gift box with a photo and story about one of the women from the cooperative. See other products from Light Gives Heat.

The Cherry Blossom Mother’s Day card in the photo is from Sanctuary Spring, a line of beautiful, fair trade greeting cards handcrafted by women who have escaped prostitution in the Philippines. These women were originally forced into prostitution by others or because they had no other means of providing for their families. Now, they are participating in restoration services provided by local charities in order to forge a new beginning for their lives. With limited job options in the Philippines, Sanctuary Spring is a critical lifeline that provides safe, dignifying, and empowering work.

You may have already noticed, but we’ve got some brand new teas here at Trade as One. We’ve partnered with Choice Teas to bring you 4 new flavors of organic, fair trade teas. We’ve got Rooibos and Vanilla, Morrocan Mint Green, Earl Grey with Lavender, and Chamomile Spearmint. These tasty teas come with years of experience in both the organic and fair trade markets, as Choice Teas have led the way in both spheres for some time. We’ve already sampled these teas at a few events, and they’ve been a big hit. They’re great as gifts, especially when you pair them with a mug or a good book.

Now if you’re like us, you might be wondering, what is Rooibos anyway? First, we’ll tackle step one: pronunciation. It’s deceiving, but it’s actually pronounced like “roy-bos.” All together now: “roy-bos.”

Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can move on to specifics. Our friends at Choice Teas got into all kinds of detail on their blog. Here’s an excerpt:

The name “rooibos” is Afrikaans for ‘red bush,’ referring to the signature red color of the dried leaves of the Aspalathus linearis plant. It’s grown solely in the Cedarburg Mountains of South Africa and has been enjoyed there for centuries. It’s believed that the ancient Khoi and San people of South Africa were the first to drink rooibos, harvesting the leaves with axes and leaving it to dry in heaps in the sun. Early Dutch settlers started drinking rooibos as an alternative to expensive black tea. It wasn’t until the early 20th century, however, that rooibos was exported out of South Africa. And it wasn’t developed commercially until the 1930s. Its popularity expanded from South Africa to the rest of the world. It’s easy to see why.

To me, that’s enough, but it’s also good for you. Its high antioxidant and flavanoid content is similar to tea, and it’s also been known to assist with allergies and digestive problems. In South Africa, rooibos has traditionally used to sooth colic in infants…

So enjoy these great teas, knowing that you’re not only drinking a tasty treat, but you’re taking care of the earth and supporting hardworking farmers the world over!

The beautiful jewelry of NightLight tells stories of lives rebuilt and hope restored. Kay is one of these lives.

Kay was five months pregnant when her mamasan brought her to NightLight for assistance. No longer able to work in the bar, she had nowhere to go. Kay moved into the shelter and started working in NightLight’s jewelry business. Four months later Kay’s beautiful baby girl was born, and while most women leave their children with grandparents to find work, NightLight’s child care center provided a way for Kay to raise her daughter while she continued to work. Kay’s heart is full of joy and she has become one of NightLight’s primary leaders for morning worship before the day’s jewelry production begins.

Nightlight was launched in 2005 to provide a sustainable path out of poverty and sexual abuse for Bangkok’s young women. After observing the situation around them, the founders of NightLight set a goal to combat the sexual exploitation of women and children in the Nana/Sukhumvit area of Bangkok, an area rife with sexual abuse, trafficking, and extreme poverty.

Through life-on-life ministry NightLight seeks to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of women in prostitution, their children, and those children brought illegally into Thailand to financially support their families by selling items in the bars, often through sexual exploitation. By building relationships, along with providing a center that offers emergency aid, educational and employment opportunity, emergency child care, language tutoring, literacy training, biblical teaching and healing for their community, NightLight is truly bringing light into the darkness as they impact the lives of the women and children in Bangkok who have escaped the horrors of the sex industry.

Trade as One is proud to partner with NightLight and offer these brave women a chance to connect with women in America who would love nothing more than for the jewelry they wear to be an expression of freedom and justice.

One of our friends Jenni Keast wrote this story for us about the artisans of AITA. She lent us her writing talent, so we wanted to share it with you! Read on to learn more about AITA and the creativity that continues to thrive in the developing world. AITA is a fair trade business committed to building long-term relationships with many artist communities who live and work in the beautiful land of the Zulu. They help keep long-standing families and communities together through the preservation of traditional art forms.  The name AITA is township slang from the new South Africa; it’s a cheerful greeting between friends and strangers alike.

As the world is going wireless at a dizzying speed, one Zulu province in South Africa is going backward––using once-discarded telephone wire to bring some much-needed modern prosperity to its beleaguered people, while still weaving in the communal traditions of the past.

If you look at what discarded plastic-coated telephone wire looks like on the ground, it’s an unsightly mess––good for only one thing: disposal. Yet for the men and women living in the Zulu province of KwaZulu–Natal, a proud community of people who once felt “disposed of” themselves during the bitter and racially divisive years of apartheid, discarded telephone wire has evolved into “ a thing of beauty is a joy forever” ––in a way that would surprise even the poet who penned those words. 

As the story goes, on a warm and muggy mid-1960s’ night, a lone Zulu migrant night watchman, perhaps bored with counting the always-plentiful African ant-mugging flies crawling along the walls of the buildings, spied something that immediately fired up his imagination: multicolored plastic telephone wire. Creative inspiration gave way to action as the former basket weaver-turned-watchman ripped out the wiring from the walls, then passed the rest of the night happily weaving unique and colorful decorations for his traditional Zulu knobkerries (traditional night-sticks) and izimbenges (beer pot lids).

Monday Morning Mishap

Needless to say, when employees came to work on Monday, phone service was noticeably absent. As fate would have it, a temporary loss of contact with the outside world––-and, no doubt, the watchman’s job––was a small price to pay for the discovery of a new artistic medium that would soon supplant the more traditional and arduous form of basket weaving for which the Zulu people were known. Before long, other basket makers in the region caught on to the commercial prospects of wire basket weaving, making the practice of “precycling” copper telephone wire the new national pastime for starving artists everywhere.

From Beer to Bowls: Hops Off to Progress.

Today, Zulu night sticks and beer pot lids have been replaced by far more profitable bowls and platters. Each piece is a unique work of art and a vibrant new take on the once labor-intensive practice of grass-weaving baskets. Those baskets were challenging to produce mainly because of the difficulty in coloring native plants, grasses, and other natural fibers.

In contrast, the Zulu artisans of AITA eagerly embrace using plastic-coated copper telephone wire (now legally acquired by the artisans through custom manufacturers), for one, because the vivid colors of these manufactured materials can never be replicated in nature. Called “mbenge” in their native language, the colorful and celebrated stunning works of functional art are as beautiful as they are practical. Besides being tightly woven and very durable, each bowl is crafted in an explosion of color and intricate design; its whirls and circles are considered culturally significant, indicating a new baby, needed rains, a plentiful harvest, or just plain good news.

Good news is just what the mbenges have brought to communities of Zulu families in KwaZulu–Nata, a province rife with unemployment. Many of the AITA weavers there are widows, their husbands often the victims of AIDS, malaria, or intertribal warfare.  Even those who still have husbands often lose them to long commutes to the big cities where most of the work is found.

Smiles all Around, Learning Abounds

Yet despite their enormous challenges, women weavers like Jaheni Mkhize and Zeni Sabeth are a happy, openly demonstrative, and empathetic people. You’d be hard pressed to find one who won’t easily lend you a smile––and their understanding.  No doubt one reason for their buoyant spirit is their resilient character, forged in adversity, that enables them to turn suffering into strength.  But now it’s also because their tight-knit community has one of the few stable sources of employment in the entire province.

Wire basket weaving has evolved into both a marketable trade and a rewarding art form––a critical source of income that allows the Zulu people to preserve the family unit by living and working at home. By eliminating long commutes, parents can raise their children properly, keeping customs and culture intact while giving their children and grandchildren one critical benefit of prosperity their own parents were never able to give them––an education.

Bowling over the Art World

Prosperity has conferred another unexpected Western “benefit” for the Zulu artisans:  celebrity status. As a result of their beautiful creations, a few of the artisans have become internationally renowned in the art world, their baskets being proudly displayed in collections and exhibitions world wide.  Clearly they love what they do, and it shows.

Telephone wire––once a conduit used to connect human voices across thousands of miles in order to extend communities––has become a conveyance for a new form of human expression that now extends across the globe. Through the unique and beautiful art form of mbenge making, discovered during one of the darkest periods of their history, AITA’s Zulu artisans are skillfully weaving important symbols of a proud and colorful past with the geometric expressions of a bold and hopeful future, then joyfully sharing their story with the rest of the world.