Ok, so it may not be America’s Next Top Model, but World of Good has the perfect opportunity for you. We’re looking for a fresh face to show off our beautiful, fair trade fashion accessory collections for our spring 2010 catalog. Think you have what it takes? If you’re female, in your late 20’s or 30’s, and you live in the Bay Area, you just might.

We are looking to shoot the second week of June and are offering a small stipend, as well as some free fair trade accessories. Send your headshot, portfolio and contact information to: models@worldofgoodinc.com

Priya Haji with Robert Chatwani from eBay

WorldofGood.com was nominated as one of 10 Visionaries Building The Market For Green Consumers by the 2nd annual Heart of Green Awards. Final awards will be announced on Earth Day (April 22) in New York.

http://twitter.com/originalgood

The World Economic Forum just announced their appointees for the 2009 Young Global Leaders and we are incredibly excited that Priya has been selected. Each year, the Forum names between 200 and 300 outstanding young leaders for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. Other honorees this year include Mark Zuckerberg – founder and CEO of Facebook, Premal Shah – President of Kiva, Chris Martin from Coldplay and Sachin Tendulkar from the Indian cricket team. You can read more in the official release and a Techcrunch’s post about it.

From my guest blog on USAservice.org.

An interesting thing is happening. In a time of great uncertainty and transition for the country, and for the world, the response to the challenges that we face as a nation, in homes and communities from Seattle to Miami, has been one of action and motivation, rather than acceptance and defeat. I believe that it is the example set by extraordinary leaders like President-Elect Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that has inspired this national call-to-arms, but I think it is important for us to remember that the ways in which we move to action, and serve our country, can be quite ordinary.
In fact, there has perhaps never been a moment in history where simple decisions that are made every day by every person stand to have as much impact as they do today. We saw this last November, when millions of people made the very simple decision to stop by the voting booth on their way to work, and we made history as a collective nation. And we see it when our neighbors, and their neighbors, pick up the phone to request a recycling bin from their local county officials and millions of tons of unnecessary waste are conserved each year.

Another set of powerful – yet very ordinary – decisions, particularly in the current economic climate that we face, are the purchasing choices that we make as consumers. Whether we are stocking up on paper towels, planning a wedding, or shopping for a new computer, the growing interconnectedness of the world has opened the possibility for our transactions in Minneapolis, or San Diego, or Boston – to create ripple effects that can be felt in countries all over the world.

As the CEO and Co-Founder of World of Good, Inc I have spent the last five years focused on helping to create the links in the chain that allow for ordinary actions to have extraordinary impacts. We have built a network of product designers and producers that come from rural villages in 150 communities across the globe, and worked hard to forge partnerships that get the beautiful bags, scarves, necklaces, and baskets that they create in to the places where people shop every day – from the aisles of Whole Foods to the virtual shelves on eBay. Because of the commitment of millions of ordinary shoppers, a few committed retailers, and a handful of inspired MBA students, we have been able to support the livelihoods of more than 25,000 individuals globally.

I believe in the inclusivity of service – that everyone has a part to play – and that when the service of one connects to the service of another, and another, and another, a powerful and transformative process can occur. Whether you are an extraordinary leader, like those that we have occasion to recognize next week, an inspired social entrepreneur like me, or a mother on her weekly trip to the grocery store, the important thing to remember is that when it comes to service, everyone has a role to play. Our country needs all of us.

This article on the Fair Trade Wage Guide by Priya and Holly was recently featured on the front page of “Craft News”, the Craft Center Newsletter.

World of Good Development Organization aims to eliminate poverty and structurally improve the quality of life for artisans in very low income craft producing communities around the world. We achieve this goal by partnering with businesses and non-profits to build a stronger fair trade crafts movement in the United States, promoting clear, transparent international standards for fair trade crafts, and investing in economic and social development projects in craft producer communities.
Conscious Consumerism
Conscientious consumers in the United States and Europe are increasingly using their purchasing power to reflect their values. More than 30% of Americans identify themselves as consumers interested in goods and services that value health, the environment, social justice and sustainable living. As the idea of fair trade has become more recognizable, consumers are now asking for ethically sourced choices across all categories. We want to know that we can choose everything from our coffee to our clothing with the assurance that the people behind the products were treated respectfully and paid fairly.
Fair Wage trainings have enabled artisans to quickly and easily calculate their costs to ensure they are receiving a fair salary for their products.
Fair Trade: The Next Organics
In the same way that the organics movement taught us to think about the processes behind the food we eat, fair trade is teaching us to think about the people behind the products we buy. The mission of fair trade has always been to create sustainable incomes for producers in developing countries by providing access to larger markets. And the market for fair trade in the United States is fast growing momentum. According to a report from the Fair Trade Federation, the market for fair trade has been growing approximately 40% per year over the past several years. While the majority of sales can be attributed to fair trade coffee, 20% of all sales in the United States are  jewelry and handcrafts. This rapid growth is allowing thousands of farmers, artisans and communities around the world to participate in an empowering and transparent version of free trade. At the same time, this growth is presenting new challenges with respect to the standardization of fair trade practices beyond the category of coffee.
Measuring Fair Trade: Standards and Certification
Currently there are two ways of tracking and measuring fair trade standards. The first system is at the product level and actually certifies that the individual product being sold is fair trade. This certification process is managed internationally by the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) based in Bonn, Germany. Its counter- part in the United States is Transfair, based in Oakland, California. Thanks to Transfair and the FLO, we can now confidently choose coffee, tea, sugar, rice and fruit bearing the fair trade certified label. Certification requires meeting multiple standards, including key trading relation- ship principles as well as paying a set minimum floor price. To learn more about these standards and the certification process visit: www.transfairusa.org.
The second tracking system is at the company level and does not certify individual products. In categories like handcrafts, clothing, textiles and furniture, where certification does not yet exist, producer groups and trading companies are evaluated at the level of the organization. This evaluation is managed internationally by the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) in the Netherlands and in the United States by a trade association called the Fair Trade Federation (FTF).

A Paradigm Shift: Valuing the Time of Production
Under the IFAT system, when a con- sumer purchases a handmade necklace from Ghana, they trust that the organiza- tion or company they are purchasing from is practicing fair trade principles. In an industry that is based around consumer trust, it is important to maintain this trust. When there were only a handful of fair trade importers, it was easy to express the mission of fair trade to consumers. Yet, as the movement continues to grow, it is going to become harder to maintain this message. Therefore, it is critical that strong standards are in place to ensure that the fair trade industry is not eroded by ill intentioned companies only interested in getting a piece of the market. How can we strengthen the cur- rent principles to ensure consumer confidence and also guarantee that artisans are being treated fairly and with respect? Fair trade leaders from around the world are working to tackle this complicated issue and are focusing much of their effort on creating standards around wages for artisans, similar to the way FLO created a floor price for coffee. Historically, the thought process behind wages for handmade goods has been, “you can compare coffee around the world to more coffee, but how do you compare a basket in Zimbabwe to a basket in Cambodia? How can we set a standard floor price for all baskets regardless of where or how they were made?” A new approach is evolving; one that requires shifting our focus to the one measurable common denominator – the time it takes to create the product. This is true whether the artisan weaves a basket or knits a scarf. Our goal as a movement is to be certain that the artisan is compensated fairly for their labor time and that the proper standards are in place to ensure that the artisans are not being exploited.

The Fair Trade Wage Guide: Measuring Time
With the collaboration of other fair trade organizations, World of Good Development Organization (www.worldofgood.org) has developed a simple, web-based tool to help artisans and traders determine a fair wage based on the time it takes to make a product. The Fair Trade Wage Guide (www.fairtradewageguide.org) is a free web- site that allows users to enter basic information about a product such as the country where the artisan lives, how long it takes to make the item, how much the materials cost and how much the artisan is paid. Based on these inputs, the Wage Guide can determine a daily wage for the artisan. The Wage Guide will then compare the daily wage to local economic indicators like minimum wage and poverty lines for that specific country. The Wage Guide is still in its testing phase, but our goal is to use the Wage Guide to create a floor price for payment to artisans. While it may seem like a simple idea, there are still many challenges. For example, if a group of artisans work together on a product, how do you measure the time? Or when the artisan is practicing a traditional form of art, like back strap weaving that may take days or even weeks to produce one item, how can you pay a fair wage for this
labor time?

Conclusion: Moving Forward
Leaders in the fair trade movement agree that finding solutions to the challenges faced in the handcrafts sector are critical to the continued growth and success of fair trade. At a recent conference hosted by the World of Good Development Organization, many organizations such as The Crafts Center, Global Exchange, Serrv International, Ten Thousand Villages, Aid to Artisans and IFAT, as well as European World Shop partners, signed on to help test and improve the Fair Trade Wage Guide. The Wage Guide is available on the web, and with the contribution from these partners, we will test 2,000 products with the goal of improving the floor pricing process for the crafts segment. We encourage you to check out the Wage Guide at www.fairtradewageguide.org. We also welcome you to join our team by testing products into the tool. Please join us with your thoughts and suggestions.

Holly Harbour is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of World of Good Development Organization and can be contacted at holly@worldofgood.org.  Priya Haji is the CEO & Co-Founder of World of Good and Chair of the Co-op America Board.

The final days in Daresalaam are packed with activity. I am very excited to meet the artisan groups in Tanzania as the need in this country is tremendous. After the struggle against colonization, the government of Tanzania chose to nationalize all  industries (I hear a lot about this and the implications throughout the day). Over time the government has began privatizing various sectors and the economy is gradually rebuilding and stabilizing. There is an immediate noticeable difference in the export experience, communication infrastructure, and business readiness between the organizations in Tanzania and Kenya (where there was never a nationalization effort).

We start the day at Mikono, a worker owned artisan promotion cooperative, which was bought back from the government by the artisans themselves. They have a series of workshops on site where they coordinate tie-dieing, tailoring, wood carving and painting. Other crafts are done remotely like basket weaving in the homes of the women artisans. The coordinator Deo has a great presence and a very big smile, I had the chance to meet him briefly in Arusha and now he is really happy that I am at their offices. He is very happy that World of Good is aiming to bring the products to mainstream markets and he wants the opportunity to create products to compete on the product attributes itself, and that he feels in the past the fair traders have often purchased out of charity. He is concerned that the current product offerings may not measure up, but he really wants feedback and new designs. Then they show me around the complex, including a new gallery that they are creating to direct retail the Mikono products. They have some items that are really one-of-a-kind high end paintings which are amazing. They have a master woodcarver on site who can develop a product around any design and then they distribute the design out to the villages.

When I ask about sustainable forestry and the sources of the wood, they explain that the Tanzanian government is regulating the harvesting of all hardwoods. We discuss the challenges of assuring the sources of wood and World of Good’ focus on preserving the environment. The Mikono team is very interested to get this kind of feedback from the market. I collect a number of samples, but tell them frankly, that I do think the product will need significant designing to make it meet up to the standards that the World of Good expects. They are ready for the challenge. We then head to meet several organizing entities – once called SIDO which is funded through the United Nations to assist artisans all around Tanzania. I learn about their infrastructure and review the list of organizations they are assisting, and I am happy to find several that overlap with our partner list. I also meet with an American woman Kathleen who is based in Dar working with an international banking initiative to provide capital to different small enterprises including artisan groups. We have a quick meeting over samosas (a favorite dish even in Africa!) and she tells me about AGOA. This is a key initiative designed to help African exports compete more effectively in the United States whereby all of the World of Good imports should be able to come in duty-free because the work we are doing would qualify under the AGOA exceptions. Also, she and I have an interesting discussion about the fair trade calculator and the goal that World of Good has to ensure that fair prices are paid to the artisans. She tells me that from her perspective she thinks the access to capital is a key ingredient for ensuring fair prices, because when the organizations are capital starved, they try to squeeze the payments to the suppliers in order to generate higher cash flows because the promised revenues are out in the future. This is an important perspective for us to consider as we build our partnership with Shared Interest and try to work to help more producer groups become capitalized.

Next we meet Joyce from Footloose an initiative she started after many years working in international economic development work. She carries herself with an openness and interest in learning the opportunities in the US market. She has had some contact with bib box retailers in the past, and while she is excited to work with them because of the opportunity it brings, she is also concerned that they are not necessarily focused on building long term relationships and repeating orders. She shows me some of the products she has done for them, and we test some items on the calculator. The benefits of fair trade are clear. Joyce then takes us out to the outskirts of Dar to see the workshop where her organization works with artisans to collect and finish the products.

While we are in the car we drive past the place where my father grew up, the business that his family ran, and an interesting conversation ensues. He explains to Joyce how during the time of nationalization he was in India studying medicine with the intention of coming back to Africa to open a clinic. His father (my grandfather) was a strong supporter of the anti-colonial movement for the benefit of the Africans, he campaigned for Nerere in the elections in the late 60’s, and helped to garner support in the Indian community. During this time there was significant upheaval and social unrest throughout East Africa – Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. When Nerere won the elections there was so much hope for the future of Tanzania and improvement for the Africans. Then at some point Nerere’s politics took a turn towards socialism/communism after he made a trip to China and saw how the political system there was working. He made a decision in the early 70’s to nationalize all the industries. My grandfather’s business and the building where my father grew up was possessed by the government and then redistributed to working class and poor Africans as part of the vision to build a more equitable society through reallocation of resources. My grandfather was initially moved to a two bedroom apartment with my grandmother, and then the police came to even ask them to downsize from there. When he refused he was taken to jail, where he stayed for two months until my uncles were able to get him released through their relationships at the UN and WorldBank. Upon his release my grandfather and grandmother left Africa, never to return.

Joyce then chimed in with her reflections, first expressing sadness at the process of what happened to my father’s family. She shared that while the vision may have seemed good at the time to the political leadership, in reality  the process did not create the desired results. Many of the farmers who received land had plots too small to create larger scale farming and overall production went down, real estate lapsed into disrepair, and many times individuals asked to run businesses without any experience found themselves overwhelmed. The colonial system had not created enough educated Africans to sustain the vision of a country that did not also rely on the educated merchant class of Indians who had held these posts. Joyce explained that from her perspective many Tanzanians still believe that Nerere did the right thing, but complain that Tanzania is poorer than Kenya where nationalization never occurred and so private industry thrives. She said that there still needs to be tremendous investment in education and infrastructure to help Tanzania compete as the country moves towards privatization. For me, I understood much more about my father and grandfather, and the impact this process had on their lives as well as many other Indians who left the country losing everything. As an idealist myself, who wants to work towards the empowerment of the poor, I could relate to the vision of the nationalization efforts to create wealth for the most marginalized. But, as a business woman, who is trying to create sustainable economic development, I also see the benefits of creating trade based on merit and performance – but where the equalization of opportunity comes through access to education, housing, and capital resources. At the end of the long car ride, I met several more producers including one who works with Aid to Artisans and has great designs on textiles, and got ready for my journey back to the United States.

I am going home happy to be back with the rest of my team. I will be walking back straight into the National Booksellers Convention in Washington DC. I am so excited to sell our program and products because I am more convinced than ever about the importance of what we are doing. Already the calls and emails of things that I need to do have started arriving for me, and I can feel the pull back to my daily responsibilities in the office – key customers that need attention, the final close on the investment, and so many other interesting projects.

At the Amsterdam airport I had to say bye to my Dad as he headed to Texas, and I cried. I really felt so lucky to have this time to share my work and thoughts with my Dad and learn more about his past. Also, I am so lucky to have a father that I admire in every way, who is also a very easy fun person to be around. For the entire two weeks everything just flowed and the energy between us was so easy. When I got to Washington DC after my long flight it felt strange not to have him right there with me. In DC I jumped off the plane and straight onto phone calls to finalize questions with one of our new investors and to help sort out the concerns of one of our customers. I also lugged two huge suitcases of samples back to the hotel, which I can not wait to show Jagadha and Margot. I felt right back in the groove! The shower at the Embassy Suites was amazing, and I am planning to get a good night of rest to get ready to set-up for the tradeshow tomorrow!