The new program of Partners for Just Trade (PJT) — a nonprofit, Christian organization that builds ties between “conscientious consumers” and artisans living in extreme poverty — gives donors the opportunity to purchase goods and services that Peruvian artisans need to start or expand their micro-businesses.
The new “symbolic gift” program is aimed at those who do not want to consume more, but still want to support the micro-enterprise organization and its coterie of women producers, who are the majority of PJT artisans and who often are the primary wage earners for their extended families.
“This is for folks who want to support fair trade, but who think that they need to consume less themselves. It is also for those who want to support the work our organization does, but who’ve already given PJT gifts in previous years and want something new and different,” said PJT Executive Director Carrie Hawthorne.
The costs of donating “symbolic gifts” run from small to sizeable.
For instance, among more than a dozen options, a $17 “symbolic gift” buys a knitting starter kit. Ten dollars pays for 10 hours of Internet access for running spreadsheets or for studying product lines in catalogues in order to develop new ideas. Seventy-five dollars covers one month’s rent for an artisan group, while $250 buys a sewing machine.
“With this kind of gift-giving, you get to see what your gift does as opposed to just doing a good deed by sending money,” said David Andrews of Asheville, N.C., who is a member of PJT’s board and a former PC(USA) young adult volunteer in Peru’s Andes Mountains. Andrews became acquainted with a number of the cooperatives there.
Before arriving in Peru, Andrews understood the principles of fair trade from an academic perspective; but his year in the Andes offered him a look at trade from the perspective of a community. He watched women gain control over their financial lives and earn respect in their towns as entrepreneurs. With the advent of fair wages, he saw improvements in housing, education and self-respect — not to mention the ability to afford a balanced diet.
PJT also markets the goods produced by the 200 artisans in 20 cooperatives with which it partners. Last year, PJT generated $130,000 in sales of such Peruvian-produced items such as children’s products, women’s wear, bags and duffles, and toys.
Its latest line is fair-trade fruit from Cameroon, a church-based initiative through RELUFA, an anti-hunger advocacy organization in Yaounde that partners with the Joining Hands Initiative of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.
PJT has its origins in the work of former mission co-worker Ruth Farrell, who is now the PHP coordinator. PHP’s Joining Hands Initiative gave the initial funding to train artisans to run their own businesses, design their own products, set their own prices, and find new markets.
“The way the economic system runs now — governed by conglomerates — it is very difficult for women like these to even participate other than as laborers, for which they are paid a pittance,” said Farrell. “With fair trade, they’re participating as full partners.”
Andrews said his grandmother bought chicks and ducks for families in Africa through gift donations when he was a child. “I just thought it was the coolest thing,” he said, adding that he intends to not only send a “symbolic gift” of rent for one month, but to find a way to reduce the worry of an artisan group by picking up the tab for several
months as a Christmas gift for friends here.
Information for this story furnished by Alexa Smith, Presbyterian Hunger Program.
