First Hand Experience

Just like most things in life, you don’t know what Ghana or Fair Trade is all about until you see it up close and personal. We have been fortunate enough to have some clients willing to come and see what we are all about. I think this proves to be an incredibly eye opening experience. It is not all as idealistic and fairytale as we’d like it to be. And yet it is still incredible. But you can’t piece together the puzzle until you become a piece of it! Even my explanations of how things work pale in comparison to my personal experience, some of which I could never simplify enough to present to you.

This current rambling is arising from a frustrating recent encounter with a customer who I wish would just come and see how things work here. Because, frankly, they have no clue! This customer has placed one of our largest single item orders and they are one of our first mass market retailers. Their daunting quality control regulations are incredibly restrictive, considering our resources. It is really interesting to be on this side of the looking glass! When I was in “massmarketland” receiving products for review, my critical eye was always turned up to turbo power, but now, when these same critical eyes are turned on me and my women, the defensive shields go up!

I mean, we are working literally within the confines of natural capacity…hand washing, hand powered sewing machines and natural sunlight. So we are going to need some forgiveness when it comes to jumping stitches, uneven topstitching and the oversight of a faint stain. Seriously, you try sewing a perfectly straight line when you are powering your sewing machine with one hand and guiding the fabric with the other!

But how can our customer ever really understand this when they are used to industrial machines. I’m not just talking about the sewing machines either, but also the human power behind mass produced product which is seen by the mass market retailer as just another replaceable cog in the machine!

In spite of this, we will do the best we can to create a “perfect” product while standing firm in our goal: not treating our women like machines. But, I just wish that this customer and all of you for that matter, would come and gain some much needed first hand experience so that there could be an overall understanding of the value in this approach to production! Fair Trade is not just a marketing commodity (think organic at Walmart!).

It needs to be seen and appreciated for all of its bumps and bruises because that is what makes it real! It is a real human struggle to have fair interactions between the consumer and the producer. And it is important to understand as a consumer that you will not get perfect, cookie cutter product, but that is where the value lies. It is, in part, this realness, this pure human interchange that takes place, even if it is messy at times, that makes the trade fair. It is in this refusal to treat our producers as machines, or even as helpless individuals who deserve a handout, that we strengthen ourselves as part of the global marketplace without diminishing the globe in the process!