By Pam Raffensberger, CEO of Ten Thousand Villages.
When Ten Thousand Villages founder Edna Ruth Byler introduced the concept now known as fair trade, she wasn’t trying to make headlines. She certainly didn’t realize at the time that she would become the pioneer of a global movement for ethical sourcing and human rights. She simply saw a need, and she saw an opportunity, and then she acted, working to advance the good of women in an impoverished village of Puerto Rico.
That was 1946. What started with a dozen women has grown to 20,000 artisans—the majority of them women—across the developing world, and a retail network of more than 70 shops nationwide plus an online store. Yet our business model is very much the same. At Ten Thousand Villages we ensure that makers receive fair prices and have safe working conditions. We provide a market for their beautiful creations. We make long-term buying commitments and provide cash advances to support the sustainability of artisan businesses. These trading relationships allow us to collaborate on product design, helping makers find innovative ways to use their traditional skills.
We do this because we believe that all people, no matter where they live, deserve the opportunity to earn a fair wage, to be treated with dignity and respect and to live a life of quality. Combatting poverty is at the heart of our work, and empowering women is a key strategy for creating economic change. By providing opportunities for women in developing countries, we help them secure a better future for themselves and their families. In countries where gender inequality is a cultural norm, a woman’s ability to earn an income strengthens her position in the community. Her fair trade wages are often a family’s most consistent source of income to secure housing, food and education. A fair trade job is also a chance to learn skills, build confidence and create an identity.
We see this process happening throughout the 30 developing countries we work in, including Indonesia, where I had the opportunity to visit maker groups this past year. On the island of Lombok in Indonesia, in the villages of Banyumulek, Masbagik Timur and Penujak women have been making pottery for 500 years. They have learned the craft from their mothers and they teach it to their daughters, a custom called “turun temurun.”
As it has passed from generation to generation and into modern times, the method itself has changed little. The earthenware clay is dug nearby, no more than two miles from their villages. Pottery is entirely hand-built. Makers do not use a wheel, just a basic turntable, and the simplest of tools— a pen, a bamboo twig to measure, a pencil for etching, a pot of water and a rag. Many women make their pieces at home, and then they bring them to a communal area for firing in simple pits covered with straw and coconut husks collected from the countryside. Families use the pottery they make—to cook, collect water, store food and belongings. It is also their livelihood.
The types of vessels and the decorations that adorn them distinguish the work of the three villages that together form the Lombok Pottery Center. Membership in this cooperative enterprise is permitted only to women. They may retire with a pension at age 60 and pass their membership to a daughter skilled in pottery making who is over the age of 17.
In these disadvantaged communities, the opportunity to earn income has helped women send their children to high school and college. It has given women a place in their society they would not otherwise have. A centuries-old tradition has empowered them socially and economically to create new futures for themselves and their families. Our buyer for Indonesia describes Lombok as “a gold mine of beauty and soul in an unexpected and unassuming place.” I saw that, when I visited: the sense of joy among the women as they worked together in the firing area and among the children, too, doing what children everywhere do: chasing a kite, playing with a sister, walking down the road with a grandmother.
“Pottery is their treasure,” our buyer says. And while the ceramic pieces that the women of Lombok create are indeed masterpieces in clay, I suspect that what is most valuable is the tradition of skill itself. This is the asset they have leveraged to find autonomy and to create opportunities for their children. Lombok Pottery Center has helped them to turn their unique knowledge into something beautiful, marketable and sustainable. They know their treasure and they are sharing it with the world, to make their world a better place.
When I visit one our stores and pick up a Lombok water pitcher, or admire the photo of a hand-hammered Kenyan necklace on our website, I am reminded that every Ten Thousand Villages product is a treasure of beauty and soul. And I am inspired with the knowledge that each of us has our own treasure – a unique and shining talent. May we seek these treasures in ourselves and in others, and may we share them with the world.