Last night, Hoopla hosted its first Living Green Salon with Ellen Reich, founder of Three Stone Steps. Ellen travels extensively in Cambodia to bring unique, beautiful and funky accessories to the U.S. marketplace. Her great line of recycled mosquito net wallets, purses and messenger bags have been a great hit at Hoopla.
Ellen talked to us about her work with women in Cambodia, how she got started, and how she keeps it all going as a very small independent business. You can hear more of her stories about Cambodia, travel, fair trade, food and more on her interesting, opinionated blog. Here is a link to some photographs of the women she works with in Cambodia.
One of the great things about last night's conversation was the audience. It was great to be surrounded by a group of younger folks with well thought-out opinions about fair trade, the environment, politics, and more! I hope Ellen doesn't mind my saying, she and I were a decade or so more seasoned than most of our audience, but they were able to challenge us and make us think about the choices we all have to make in trying to live a conscious green life.
Once Ellen got started with her talk, we pretty quickly moved from the basics to the complexities of talking about fair trade. Ellen works only with certified fair trade producers and non-governmental organizations in Cambodia, but she does not just leave it at that. Three Stone Steps takes a very active role in monitoring the workers' wages and living conditions, making sure that it is more than just talk and statistics about fair pay. One of the difficulties she finds in working with established producer groups is that they are subject to the demands of much larger, "certified" fair trade importers who can make demands abut quantities, price or schedules that the producers groups don't feel they can refuse. I guess the bottom line is that even in the fair trade world, big business holds a lot of power.
From my point of view as a very small independent retailer, I have grown skeptical of working with the larger, more established fair trade groups. I'm not interested in selling the products that look almost mass-produced on the shelves of large chains like Whole Foods. That is why I've made a decision not to insist on certification from my suppliers. Sure, in an ideal world, certification would let consumers know that they were getting the real deal. But many small producer groups and importers that I work with cannot afford the time (3-5 years) or cost (in the thousands of dollars) to get certified. So I'm more comfortable with a grassroots approach to fair trade. I want to make sure that my suppliers have actually seen the workers they are buying from, and can assure me that their lives are being improved by my purchase.
Please let me know what you think about certification or any other aspect of fair trade. I'd love to hear your views.
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