The light catches the beautiful white luster of the stone carving you are holding. The stone is cool and smooth, depicting a mother holding her child. If this were any other store, you would know how this product came to sit in your hands. If this were any other store, it would have been designed by someone sitting in a cubicle; then passed down to engineering; then manufactured in a factory; then shipped in a truck; then tagged by a barcode; and, finally, placed on a shelf where it sat until it caught your eye.
But this isn’t just any other store. This is Ten Thousand Villages, and behind the creation of each product is a face with a story. In this case, it is the story of Athanas Matoke Sure, an artisan from the Tabaka region of Kenya. Everyday, he sits in the brilliant Kenyan sun with twelve of his colleagues, carefully crafting each piece using only traditional tools, materials, and skills. Sure makes a good living; he and his fellow artisans are able to feed and clothe their families with ease. In a country where the per capita income is no more than a meager $360, this is no small feat.
A VILLAGE’S BEGINNINGS & GROWTH
In 1946, during a visit to Puerto Rico with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the relief and development agency of the Mennonite Church, Edna Ruth Byler met a group of women who were sewing beautiful handicraft items. Upon learning that the women were also living in dire poverty, Byler decided to buy their handicrafts and resell them in her basement back home in Akron, Pennsylvania. Soon, she was buying handicrafts from other artisans in need, including woodenware from Haitians and cross-stitching from Palestinian refugees.
In the 1970s, this fair-trade store became too large to be contained in Byler’s basement and became an official program of the MCC, named SELFHELP Crafts of the World. In 1996, the store’s owners, inspired by the Mahatma Gandhi quote, “India is not to be found in its few cities but in the 700,000 villages,” renamed the store Ten Thousand Villages. What was once just a fledgling operation had become, 50 years later, an established organization, helping people like Sure all over the world.
Today, Ten Thousand Villages is a non-profit independent organization. It has 76 stores—including one in Cambridge—and its products are carried in an additional 160 locations in the United States and Canada. Ten Thousand works with artisans in 32 countries and enjoys an annual profit of over twenty million dollars. In 2005, highlighting its increased popularity and continued growth, Ten Thousand was able to increase the volume of its purchases from artisans by one million dollars.
HOW TEN THOUSAND FINDS ITS ARTISANS
“[As a fair-trade organization], we purchase handicrafts, home décor, and gifts from artisans from developing countries, mostly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” said Lisa Stratton, marketing manager for Ten Thousand Villages. According to Stratton, “A lot of the groups we currently work with are relationships [that were] started through MCC… We also have country representatives in a lot of the countries that we work. They often work on job creation with local artisans [and can] recommend a group to Ten Thousand Villages. Sometimes, a Peace Corp volunteer comes back and says, ‘I think that these rug weavers from Kenya would be a great group for you to purchase from.’”
According to Stratton, Ten Thousand sends an employee to an area to assess conditions before deciding to work with any artisan group. First of all, the group must be in their target population: “artisan groups from the poorest sectors of society.” While acknowledging that, in certain countries, a majority of the people live in poverty, Stratton notes that Ten Thousand tries “to work with a specific group of disadvantaged people,” whether that be women afflicted with HIV, or people who have physical or mental handicaps, or an ethnic group that has been discriminated against in society. Next, the buyer tries to ascertain if the artisans “have the capacity to make what [Ten Thousand] needs to sell.” That is, are the products marketable? Ten Thousand Villages’ buyers continue to visit each artisan group at least once a year to speak with the artisans directly and to ensure that workers aren’t being exploited.
Once Ten Thousand Villages has identified artisans, it seeks to create long-term, sustainable relationships with them. As Fiorella Triaca, the owner of the Ten Thousand Villages store in Cambridge, points out, “We don’t find that it’s fair for people not to have continuity; if you buy only once, you don’t make any difference in their life.”
THE ESSENCE OF FAIR TRADE
After an artisan group has been selected, a product is designed. Oftentimes, an indigenous product is already marketable in the United States; if not, the artisans work with Ten Thousand designers to create one. Even before the product is actually made, “an artisan group can receive up to 50% of the money upfront,” said Stratton. By the time the product is en route to Ten Thousand’s headquarters in Akron, Pennsylvania, the artisans have already received the payment in full. Thus, by the time the handicraft reaches a store, it has already made an impact on some artisan’s life.
The price paid to the artisans is determined via a negotiation between the artisan group and the buyer. According to Stratton, “The price [we pay to the artisan] is based on the cost of the local labor market and costs. Sometimes, the price is too low. For example, a group will believe the wild grass they picked for a basket was free but they hadn’t figured the amount of time they spent picking the grass as a part of the cost of the basket. So we will pay them more than they are asking. Sometimes, a price will be too high. There, we work with the artisan group… to create a new, more affordable design.”
This design essentially turns the artisans into entrepreneurs and, in some cases, supports an entire system of people with work. Athanas Matake Sure is a very clear example of this entreprennneurship and its extent: “Behind us there is a big line of people. The people who work at the quarry, the people who are contracted to bring us the stone, the women who sandstone… You kill the person at the head, you kill all the people behind.”
THE PEOPLE OF TEN THOUSAND VILLAGES
Ten Thousand Villages is still, at its core, a business. In order to forge this essentially direct connection between artisans and consumers— and to retain as a large an amount of money for the artisans as possible—Ten Thousand depends on many thousands of volunteers. In fact, there are almost as many volunteers as paid employees working at Ten Thousand Villages.
On a recent visit to the local Cambridge store, there were several volunteers helping out. One of those volunteers, Leslie Kilduff, a middle school teacher, first discovered Ten Thousand Villages when she was doing research on Co-Op America and green businesses. “I just loved what they were selling and their mission. It’s a very good cause, and a great way to inform [people],” she said, as she carefully unwrapped delicate jewelry boxes glimmering with hand-embroidered mirrors. Ted Bergey, another volunteer, nodded his head in agreement. He arranged the jewelry boxes on a shelf inside the store, as he spoke: “I got started through my Church. I’m a Mennonite originally from Pennsylvania, and I remember Mrs. Byler. She had these things in her basement that she had gotten from abroad. She loved them and thought they would sell well, so she had these things in her basement. After I retired, I needed things to do, and I always want to help others. I feel like I’m truly making a difference here.”
Many of the customers that shop at Ten Thousand Villages are aware of the store’s purpose. When asked why they were shopping at Ten Thousand instead of another store, customers replied, “I want to buy presents that have meaning in the world,” “I feel like I’m making a contribution,” and “I’m supporting arts and crafts from other countries.” For many customers, the idea of fair-trade is just as important as the quality of the products themselves. As one customer put it, fair-trade means a “reasonable exchange.” Others noted, “Somebody’s getting value for their labor” and “You don’t pay people five cents for their work.” While most of the clientele seemed acutely aware of Ten Thousand Villages’ purpose, even those who knew less seemingly knew enough; a slightly fish-out-ofwater teenage girl replied, “My sister is the one who really knows about this political stuff. But I do know where it’s coming from. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t spend so much.”
By simply walking into the Cambridge store, one can sense the vitality and genuine purpose of the organization. Just as important as the glimmering handicrafts and the pulsating music played in the store are pictures and quotes from the artisans. For example, an informational bookmark depicts a photo of Illies Mahmoud, a silver artisan from Niger who visited the store last year to demonstrate how he makes his jewelry.
Elsewhere in the store, a picture of Laskmi Devi, who works with 64 other women in India to create beautiful woven cloths, is on display next to her handicraft. These designs are intentional, showcasing Ten Thousand’s genuine desire to spread awareness. Cambridge owner Triaca stresses, “[We want to] talk to people about what we do, we really try to educate people to the mission.” She want on to explain, “We want people to buy something for their family [and realize] they are helping someone in another family.”
The Cambridge location of Ten Thousand Villages is in Central Square, at 694 Massachusetts Avenue.
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