Inés is from Mexico and she lived there until one day her uncle —who lived in LA with her aunt at the time— got into a horrible car accident. He was the sole source of income and Inés’ aunt was left with no other option than urge someone from her family come urgently and help. So Inés did. She uprooted everything she knew and left her family and friends. She risked her life to travel to a country she did not know to live on the margins of society and work very hard for little pay, just to help her family survive through a bad patch.

But this is not a story about Inés. This is about thousands of women refugees and immigrants just like her coming to the United States because they have been driven to abandon their home countries in search of a better future. The details change but the themes remain the same. They also have all experienced tremendous hardship. They have all abandoned their homes, families, and the people they love to come here. They have not had the luxury of gaining a good education – most of them do not even have a high school degree or even a GED. They live in such frugal conditions that planning for the future is impossible. And yet, you’d be hard pressed to meet more hopeful women and mothers.

I have heard the stories of their plights repeatedly. These women are at an impasse because without a basic education such as a GED, it’s difficult to get work.

This is why we created Vavavida, to find real solutions to the problems underprivileged women face. Inés is the reason that we exist. But last year, we weren’t helping women like Inés. You see, Vavavida is an ethical fashion e-tailer of beautiful jewelry and accessories that was focused on empowering women’s economic future abroad. We retailed products made by co-ops of artisans in developing countries following the fair trade principles.

Fair trade is quickly becoming the quality standard with commodities like chocolate, coffee, tea and bananas, but it often overlooks workers in first world countries like the United States.

In 2015, we resolved to bring fair trade opportunities to underprivileged women and refugees like Inés here in our home base of San Diego, California. Vavavida partnered with Jennifer Housman, a jewelry designer and a volunteer with PCI to create an artisan co-op of refugees here in the United States. This co-op will give them an opportunity to work from home in conditions where they can work as little or as much as they can any given day and be rewarded with a fair pay for their work. This way, they are empowered to take charge of their own future and do not have to give up money or family time by putting their kids in daycare.

We teach women like Inés to design and make jewelry inspired by the artistic traditions and designs of the regions where they come from. This was our 2015 resolution and we are proud to see the pilot program become a reality. In 2016 we resolve to continue to invest in these women and this program.

What do you resolve for 2016? Please share in the comments section below.

Antoine Didienne is the co-founder of Vavavida, a line of ethically made fashion jewelry items that give back.

It still strikes me as profoundly wrong that even though cotton is the world’s oldest commercial crop and one of the most important fibre crops in the global textile industry, the industry generally fails to focus on the entire value chain to ensure that those who grow their cotton also receive a living income.

Up to 100 million smallholder farmers in more than 100 countries worldwide depend on cotton for their income. They are at the very end of the supply chain, largely invisible and without a voice, ignored by an industry that depends on their cotton.

When it comes to clothing, companies’ supply chain engagement was once limited to who their importer was. Now they are engaging with their supply chain more and have better awareness of the factories used to manufacture their end products. Even before the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013, there had been increased attention on improving the conditions experienced by textile factory workers thanks to campaigns such as the Clean Clothes Campaign.

Some companies also have awareness beyond the factories and these are all movements in the right direction. However, even those mindful of the difficulties faced by factory workers, tend to miss the first links in the supply chain.

Maybe this is because cotton farmers continue to somehow lose out in both the so-called ‘sustainable’ and ‘ethical’ fashion debates. When companies talk about ‘sustainability’ in their clothing supply chains, they are generally looking at the environmental impact of sourcing the raw materials. Meanwhile in ‘ethical’ conversations about the many livelihoods touched by the garment value chain, companies generally refer to factory workers, again overlooking the farmer who grows the seed cotton that goes into our clothing.

The reason we need to keep insisting that cotton farmers are an important part of the fashion supply chain is because cotton is failing to provide a sustainable and profitable livelihood for the millions of smallholders who grow the seed cotton the textile industry depends on. Just as it’s important for us to take home a living wage, to help bring a level of security for our families and the ability to plan for the future, I would argue that this is even more vital for people living in poorer countries where there is little provision for basic services such as health and education or the safety net of social security systems to fall back on.

As a global commodity, cotton plays a major role in the economic and social development of emerging economies and newly industrialised countries. It is an especially important source of employment and income within West and Central Africa, India and Pakistan.

Many cotton farmers live below the poverty line and are dependent on the middle men or ginners who buy their cotton, often at prices below the cost of production. And rising costs of production, fluctuating market prices, decreasing yields and climate change are daily challenges, along with food price inflation and food insecurity. These factors also affect farmers’ ability to provide decent wages and conditions to the casual workers they employ. In West Africa, a cotton farmer’s typical smallholding of 2-5 hectares provides the essential income for basic needs such as food, healthcare, school fees and tools. A small fall in cotton prices can have serious implications for a farmer’s ability to meet these needs. In India many farmers are seriously indebted because of the high interest loans needed to purchase fertilisers and other farm inputs. Unstable, inadequate incomes perpetuate the situation in which farmers lack the finances to invest in the infrastructure, training and tools needed to improve their livelihoods.

However research shows that a small increase in the seed cotton price would significantly improve the livelihood of cotton farmers but with little impact on retail prices. Depending on the amount of cotton used and the processing needed, the cost of raw cotton makes up a small share of the retail price, not exceeding 10 percent. This is because a textile product’s price includes added value in the various processing and manufacturing activities along the supply chain. So a 10 percent increase in the seed cotton price would only result in a one percent or less increase in the retail price – a negligible amount given that retailers often receive more than half of the final retail price of the cotton finished products.

Within sustainable cotton programmes, Fairtrade works with vulnerable producers in developing countries to secure market access and better terms of trade for farmers and workers so they can provide for themselves and their families.

Our belief is that people are increasingly concerned about where their clothes come from. This year we visited cotton farmers in Pratibha-Vasudha, India, a Fairtrade co-operative in Madhya Pradesh. We saw the safety net that Fairtrade brings; the promise of a minimum price that works in a global environment. The impact on prices of subsidised production in China and the US adds to unstable global cotton prices. These farmers democratically decide how the Fairtrade Premium is spent: on training to improve soil and productivity, strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change and on the most important ways for their communities to benefit, such as building health centres and educating children.

Consumers want their clothes made well and ethically, without harmful agrochemicals and exploitation. We think about farmers when we talk about food. Let’s start thinking about farmers when we think about clothing too.

Image credits: Trevor Leighton.

We don’t know the true cost of the things we buy.  The fashion industry supply chain is fractured and producers have become faceless. This is costing lives. Not just the mass loss of life we hear about when another disaster hits a garment factory, but the  lives of individual artisans and garment workers who cannot support themselves in their own community and undertake perilous journeys in search of a better life.

Hundreds of thousands of migrant garment workers are employed throughout the fashion and textiles suppy chain, many of whom live in constant fear as they are working illegally.   “They took us to the airport and left us there for three days. We couldn’t travel, because we didn’t have tickets. Armed gunmen, who we were told were from the armed forces, threatened us. We feared we would be shot if we continued to protest. We were then rounded up in a camp” reported a garment factory worker in Mauritius to the Clean Clothes Campaign.

Legal migration can be a spur for development, but in many cases, particularly when people move illegally, migrants face harassment and violence and often increased poverty. The fashion industry has the potential to generate sustainable livelihoods for artisans and garment workers around the world wherever they live, but this can only be done through fully traceable and transparent supply chains, backed up with regular monitoring.

The current lack of transparency in fashion supply chains makes it virtually impossible for consumers to know who made their clothes and accessories.  Without knowing #whomademyclothes, how can we know in what conditions they were made?

At Pachacuti, we believe fashion needs to rediscover a traceable narrative. We have worked for three years as a pilot on the EU Geo Fair Trade project which has brought an unprecedented level of traceability to our supply chain.  The project aims to provide visible accountability of sustainable provenance, both for raw materials as well as production processes.

This level of traceability data is far from easy to collect – it cannot be achieved by a few clicks on the computer – but it is essential to guarantee that our supply chain is as transparent as we can possibly make it.  Despite the remoteness and inaccessibility of the region of Azuay where our Panama hats are woven, we traced the production of our hats back to the GPS co-ordinates of 154 of our weavers’ houses – not easy data to collect when only 45% of homes were accessible by road, located high in the Andes.

But it doesn’t stop there. Not content with tracing our Panama hats back to where they were woven, we then traced the straw back to the communities on the coast of Ecuador in Guayas province where it is processed. Next, a bumpy hour by truck from the nearest paved road, we mapped the GPS coordinates of each plot of land in the coastal cloud forest where the straw is harvested on community-owned plantations. The community has been working hard to protect their area of land and to increase sustainability and biodiversity in the area. They are now seeing a lot more toucans, armadillos and monkeys in the plantation.

Once established, the carludovica palmata plant can be cropped monthly for 100 years – surely one of the most sustainable sources of raw material imaginable. The plants also help to a prevent erosion and improve air quality. Our straw is gathered by 32 harvesters who form the Love and Peace Association – maybe a rather incongruous name for men who spend most of their lives wielding a machete! The straw harvesters are keen to point out:“We are producting oxygen for the world”

Our research for the Geo Fair Trade project took three years, including a 6 month period in Ecuador and four other field trips in order to collect social, economic and environmental indicators and track our Panama hats to their source.  Our weavers are delighted that this research data helps correct a historical misnomer and Pachacuti’s panama hats can now be tracked back to their country of origin – Ecuador!

But geographic traceability is just one element of creating a transparent supply chain. Transparency also implies openness, honesty, communication and accountability.  Regular, ongoing monitoring of the supply chain to measure both the social and environmental impact is essential if we are to claim that our products are truly sustainable.

In 2012 UNESCO declared that the art of weaving a Panama hat in Ecuador would be added to their list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Intangible Cultural Heritage is a term used for knowledge, traditions and rituals which permeate the everyday life of a community, passed down through generations and forming an intrinsic part of their identity and culture.

However, the historic exploitation of weavers by middlemen means that this timeless skill is under threat as young people are searching for alternatives.  This has led to the small, rural community where we work in Ecuador having one of the highest levels of migration in the country, with 60% of children having at least one parent living overseas. The destruction of family and community life has led to high rates of alcoholism, double the national rate of youth suicides and teen pregnancies are the norm.

We have heard so many desperately sad stories of people, including the children of our weavers, who are paying coyotes, human traffickers, to take them on the dangerous journey through Central America and Mexico, across the border to the United States.  One of our weavers has a 15 year old daughter who walked most of the way from Ecuador to Mexico before paying a coyote to cross the remote, desert border.  In the village where we work, almost the entire younger generation has migrated and women outnumber men by 7 to 1.  In interviews conducted with our weavers, most of them had children living overseas and several  of them did not even know in which country their children lived. Many emigrants will work for years to pay back the traffickers, often returning penniless to their own country.

Unlike the journey taken by most Panama Hats in the world, which pass through the hands of around seven different intermediaries (known as ‘perros’ or dogs due to their unscrupulous purchasing practices) Pachacuti works directly with our artisans in every step of the process, weaving, dyeing, blocking, finishing, to ensure that as much of the final value as possible remains in their hands.

Our work on the EU Geo Fair Trade project involved the collection of 68 social, economic and environmental indicators which enabled us to measure our Fair Trade impact, tracking progress over a three year period. We also piloted the WFTO Sustainable Fair Trade Management System and Fair Trade Guarantee System.  Prices are monitored through interviews with a sample group of weavers to ascertain a local living wage. The price is also measured against the government’s cañasta básica vital, the monthly market price of meeting basic needs for a family of 4 and we ensure that the prices we pay are rising at a higher rate of inflation. We provide ongoing training and investment, not just in design development and skills, but in self-esteem, human relations, building a nursery, costing of products and overheads and health and safety.

Since 1992, we have worked to preserve and encourage traditional hat weaving skills in Ecuador but, despite our efforts, hat weaving is still in steep decline in the wider community and the average age of our weavers is 58.  As well as working to ensure this way of life is viable for future generations, last year we provided a substantial interest-free loan to help establish a new organisation to work specifically with younger weavers.

The art of creating Panama Hats is woven into the fabric of daily life in rural Ecuador: women weave on the bus, walking to market, on their way to the fields. For the  women who weave Pachacuti Panama hats, weaving is more than an art, more than a skill, it is a way of life and represents the cultural heritage of an entire community.   Will the art of panama hat weaving die out as young people abandon traditional, rural ways of life and migrate to the city, or emigrate in pursuit of the American dream? Or can Panama hat weaving provide a sustainable form of income to enable women to remain within their rural communities, keeping families together, and passing on their culture and traditions.   Pachacuti is working to prove that the a better Panama hat industry is possible.

Fashion Revolution aims to raise awareness of the effect of our purchasing decisions on the livelihoods of garment and accessories producers and their communities.  We believe that transparency is the first step in transforming the industry and is a way to bring wider recognition to the many skilled artisans within the fashion supply chain.  This, in turn, will help ensure their work is properly valued and justly remunerated in the future.

If you want to help build more open and connected fashion supply chains, take a selfie and contact the brand on social media to ask #whomademyclothes?

There is a before and after Rana Plaza. We have all heard stories about sweatshops and yet we in the developed world are so far removed from them, it is hard for us to grasp the impact of working in these facilities. The news about the collapse of a building across the world where almost 1,200 people died is treated as news just like an earthquake or a tsunami. But unlike natural disasters, these catastrophes are man made. They happen because of greed, desperation, a lack of moral compass and a willingness to ignore others and their well-being.

Although Zara was not involved in this atrocity, they are synonymous with fast fashion. Armancio Ortega, inspired by newfound freedoms of democracy in 1974, created an affordable apparel label for the frugal Spaniard of the region of Galicia. When Ortega created Zara, the poor region of Galicia thrived with his success. The production was local and employed co-ops and other local sewing companies. Over time, his strategy to offer very affordable fashion using the latest trends on an almost zero in-store inventory model paid off, but forced him to move production to under-developed countries. These business decisions made sense when only looking at the bottom line, however moving production abroad helped create a vacuum of oversight and accountability with their subcontractors.

Now, a couple decades later, the fast fashion industry is facing a backlash. Rana Plaza was hardly the first time that fast-fashion brands such as The Gap or Zara made headlines for their sweatshops, but it feels as though the world is finally ready for a change. For the first time, there could be real financial consequences for fast-fashion companies. People are now craving something different: quality, accountability and connection. People care more about the story behind the products they buy and are more educated about them than ever before.

However, we cannot wait for the big players of the fashion industry to change on their own. We are responsible for creating the change we want to see in mass-market fashion labels. This is why campaigns like “Who Made My Clothes?” are so important. If consumers are more aware of how and who makes their clothes, they will make more educated choices.

But change is coming, in a pure battle of David against Goliath. This is evidenced in the rise of the fashion social enterprises. Vavavida, Zady, Prana, Toms shoes, Warby Parker glasses, and a slew of others all stemmed from fashion entrepreneurs wanting to shake up the industry. These companies are seeking a true connection between what they make, how they are made and how customers experience their products.

Fair Trade will help usher in a new standard of how we treat the people we do business with and change the relationship we have with the products we buy. Being ethical starts at the very base of this new business model. In the best of cases, Fair Trade can be (and should be) the lowest echelon on the ethical production ladder of how to create, sell and market ethical fashion.

But is fair trade enough?

Fair Trade is not the answer to every problem, but it can be part of the solution. Fair Trade is only the beginning and yet we are a long way from making fair trade a standard in every household in America. The awareness of Fair Trade and what it means is still very low. Apart from coffee and chocolate connoisseurs, fair trade is virtually unknown in the US market. We need to raise awareness so that things can start changing for the better.

Full Circle Economics©

This is why when we created Vavavida we wanted to start with Fair Trade as a first step in the right direction and then close the loop. We created what became our operating model of Full Circle Economics©. We source our products from disadvantaged artisan cooperatives from around the world that adhere to the Fair Trade principles, we sell the items at a fair price and —thanks to our non-profit partner Project Concern International— we then use part of the revenues earned from the sales of those goods to re-invest into the communities we source our products from. Since our products are almost entirely made for women and by women, we chose to close the loop by investing in female economic empowerment programs that exist as close as possible to the co-ops we buy from.

From what we know at Vavavida of the effects of Fair Trade on the communities we partner with, it is evident that Fair Trade works. The main co-operative we source our products from has seen its wages rise by 800% ever since they started operating under the Fair Trade principles. The community has also seen a reduction of the impact their work has on the environment and because of Fair Trade, their kids remain in school much longer. But we need to do more. Women are the most affected by poverty but are also the likeliest to pull a community together out of poverty. Therefore, we need to invest in programs that focus on children’s education, female empowerment and women-led village savings program to help a community pull itself out of poverty and create a more sustainable local economy. Fashion done right can save the world.

All content on our blog is editorially independent unless it has been written by a member of the Fashion Revolution team.

The Fair Trade Advocacy Office is supporting Fashion Revolution Day on this important world-wide call for action to provoke a systemic change in the textile supply chain.

As pioneers in making supply chains work for the most disadvantaged in world trade, the Fair Trade movement welcomes this initiative that involve all parts of the supply chain to work towards concrete improvements in this sector, and that targets particularly consumers to contribute to this change. However, decision makers need to be made aware of their responsibilities towards this intolerable situation and the legislative and policy measures that are needed to address it.

We deeply deplore the dramatic events that happened in the factories in Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries where ready-made clothing factories are located where workers don’t earn a decent living income and have to work in a dreadful environment. Unfortunately, these unacceptable conditions are to be felt all across the supply chain: cotton farmers are at the start of a long and complex chain in which they are virtually invisible and wield little power or influence. The current situation of West African countries shows the drastic injustice at the basis of the global trade system, an imbalance that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has so far not been able to address properly. This is why we call on the European Union to use its leverage in trade negotiations within WTO to address urgently cotton within the agriculture negotiations.

Governments are taking some actions towards improving working conditions in global supply chains. The EU, some of its Member States, and the G-7 are discussing different initiatives on cross-cutting issues or a specific value chain like the textile one. These proposals are a welcome step, but they should cover the entire chain: from farmers, including artisans and workers, to end consumers. Priority should be given to ensure that all parts of the chain are guaranteed a living income -in the case of farmers- or wage -in the case of artisans and workers-. The EU should take advantage of these initiatives to actively promote the uptake of Fair Trade schemes. This could be done by European consumers for the clothes they buy, but also by retailers as part of their sourcing policies, and lastly also by public authorities for their purchases. All these pro-active actions are needed for the whole market to shift towards sustainability and equity.

2015 is a crucial year for the development agenda, not only at European level thanks to the European Year for Development, but also because the international community will be jointly defining the future development framework. It is time to act on all these fronts and bring about the political solutions to prevent these tragedies from happening again.

By Sergi Corbalán, Executive Director of the Fair Trade Advocacy Office

The Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) speaks out on behalf of the Fair Trade movement for Fair Trade and Trade Justice with the aim to improve the livelihoods of marginalised producers and workers in the South. The FTAO is a joint initiative of Fairtrade International, World Fair Trade Organization and the World Fair Trade Organization-Europe. Through these three networks the FTAO represents an estimate of 2.5 million Fair Trade producers and workers from 70 countries, 24 labelling initiatives, over 500 specialised Fair Trade importers, 4,000 World Shops and more than 100,000 volunteers.

 Photo:  Soloba Mady Keita, Secretary General of the National Union of Cotton Producers’ Cooperative Societies in Mali, Sergi Corbalán, Executive Director of the Fair Trade Advocacy Office and Yousouff Sidibe, from the Association of African Cotton Producers with their clothes inside-out

People sometimes ask me why I choose to work in Fairtrade gold and I always respond ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ I think that if there is an opportunity to make a positive difference then you’ve got to take it

Jewellery as an art form is so closely linked with the human experience, having been used throughout history to convey sentiment, love, wealth and power – and as my work is so directly inspired by this historical legacy it would almost seem disrespectful to use my materials callously.

There has always been a great deal of human exploitation and suffering inflicted in the quest for the creation of ‘beauty’. Unfairness may have been accepted, or ignored in the past, but now that we live in a world where knowledge is power and information is so accessible, we have a duty to exercise our freedom of choice and make positive changes where we can – it’s about being a part of the solution and not a part of the problem.

There is a tremendous sense of camaraderie in being part of the Fairtrade movement. We support each other and share information constantly I find it hugely inspiring to know that individual creativity can affect positive change and that collectively as jewellers, our voices can be heard.

The actual process of registering to become a Fairtrade gold licensee is more straightforward than you might think. There are numerous refining companies now registered, all offering an ever-increasing number of Fairtrade products and components and the recent launch of the Goldsmiths Registration Scheme has made it even easier to get involved no matter what your production capacity.

Another advantage of registering as a gold licensee is the immediate recognition that the Fairtrade mark carries. It’s a trusted and understood logo that people immediately feel comfortable with. This is of tremendous benefit when trying to communicate a system of provenance to clients – they just get it straight away!

Often the only reassurance I need give is that the gold is of exactly the same quality as non Fairtrade– the only difference is that there is a stamp that goes next to the hallmark proving that the origin of the metal and the circumstances under which it was mined are known.

That being said, there is still a long way to go before gold carries the same amount of consumer awareness as other Fairtrade products do. I am seeing an increase in the amount of customers coming to me requesting Fairtrade metal but it’s still a relatively small amount. So I’m very excited that Fashion Revolution has now welcomed jewellers into their campaign encouraging us to ask not only ‘Who made my clothes?’ but also ‘Who made my jewellery?’

In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City to demand shorter working hours, better pay and voting rights. This was the beginning of a movement from which International Women’s Day was born. Decades later, in 2011, the United Nations marked the 11^th of October as the first International Day of the Girl Child, highlighting the continuing challenges which young girls still face in communities across the globe; especially in relation to accessing education, being safe from violence and exploitation. Within the fashion industry, the pressure to meet the demands of conventional fast fashion companies is enormous. To stay competitive, manufacturing factories keep their overheads low by paying low wages for workers. Child labourers can be paid even less and are an attractive proposition for employers. Parents are forced to send their children, including young girls to work in conditions which are unsafe in order to create enough income to sustain the family.

As a Fair Trade company, People Tree works with many social businesses who not only create decent employment and pay fair wages, but who also invest in their local community. For example, by funding schools, medical support and awareness raising on the rights of women and girls. We support communities in India, Bangladesh and Nepal who empower girls by giving them access to education and vocational training. By focusing on empowerment of women through dignified and artisanal work, we help keep handicraft traditions alive, as well as offer opportunities to help strengthen these communities and continue to support their learning and development. Equal opportunities are reflected throughout People Tree’s supply chain, where 56% of leadership roles are held by women.

In rural Bangladesh, girls are often not given opportunities to go to school, instead they are encouraged to stay at home to help around the house and to get married very young. People Tree works with Swallows, an NGO set up to empower the poor and underprivileged population, especially women, in the village of Thanapara. Swallows runs a handicrafts program which makes beautiful hand woven and hand embroidered garments. This business helps to fund Swallows’ development work in the local area, and the empowerment of girls and women is central to their work.

Mrs Gini Ali, Assistant Director at Swallows, feels that discrimination and lack of opportunity for women in Bangladesh are the biggest barriers to improving living conditions there. She says:

“The Fair Trade principles applied by People Tree have created economic stability for Swallows, allowing it to become an independent organisation, this has led to the empowerment of the women of Thanapara.”

Swallows funds schools and awareness raising to ensure that girls have the same chance to study as boys. They raise awareness amongst parents, sharing the importance of education for young girls and its benefits for the family and the community. As well as sharing the importance of education, Swallows raises awareness around the issue of child marriage and the negative impacts this can have. Swallows provides free training opportunities for young women and also sponsor young women to study part time whilst the work part time making Fair Trade clothing. As well as this they offer legal support to local women who are victims of domestic violence and raise awareness locally on the issue.

In Nepal, People Tree partners with Kumbeshwar Technical School (KTS). Originally set up as a vocational training centre, KTS has now developed into a Fair Trade business creating beautiful hand knitted products. Established in 1983 with the goal of breaking societal barriers created by Nepal’s caste system, KTS was set up to help Pode people, the so-called ‘untouchable’ caste in Nepal. Those born into the Pode caste are expected to clean the sewers and streets of the areas inhabited by higher castes for no more than scraps of leftover food. The discrimination which keeps these people out of other forms of work even affects children, who may drop out of primary school because they are unable to fit in. Until recently, Pode children did not go to school at all.

KTS now offers employment to 2,273 women who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. On top of this, the profits from Fair Trade helps fund vocational training; a school; a day care centre for over 250 children from low income families and an orphanage.

Both KTS and Swallows are both ‘Guaranteed Fair Trade Organisations’ by the World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO). This recognises that the whole of the company is 100% dedicated to Fair Trade and ensures that all the groups adhere to the WFTO’s 10 Fair Trade Principles. Key to these 10 principles is Principle Six: ‘Commitment to Non Discrimination, Gender Equity and Women’s Economic Empowerment’. At People Tree we believe that Fair Trade business is a key driver in the empowerment of women and girls worldwide.

For more information about how People Tree supports women and girls, please contact us for a copy of our Social Review and read about People Tree’s latest Campaign Against Child Labour in our digital edition of the Eco-Edit: http://www.peopletree.co.uk/eco-edit

My small son announced breathlessly yesterday when I collected him from school,

“it’s Red Nose Day soon Mummy, I can’t wait!”

We were both excited, each for different reasons. He because of the appealing crimson character noses that he can collect this week. I because of the stylish range of T-shirts designed by some of the biggest names in British fashion which are now on sale in TK Maxx and modelled by a long list of celebrity names including David Gandy and Tom Hiddleston.

But more importantly, I was excited because the T-shirts and brightly spotted onesies are made from Fairtrade certified cotton and represent hope for a 250-strong group of cotton farmers located in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains of the Moon in Western Uganda.

No doubt the designers –  Anya Hindmarch, Karl Lagerfeld, Diane von Furstenberg, Henry Holland and Matthew Williamson – are aware and proud of the fact that the cotton in their signature designs was lovingly grown by the Rwenzori Farmers’ Marketing Cooperative Society Limited, a group of migrant farmers from hard-to-reach communities.

About half of the members are women. The beauty of the surrounding cotton fields is in sharp contrast to the hardships the farmers face both in their home communities and the many challenges in producing cotton: unscrupulous landlords, lack of water, volatile prices, and no cash to buy the inputs they need to grow a flourishing cotton crop.

Yet, the farmers have gone from what seemed like a hopeless situation in 2012 when the cotton price crashed and unorganized farmers were left burdened with debts, to being licensed to trade as a Fairtrade cooperative in December 2014.

Practically speaking, this means that farmers selling cotton on Fairtrade terms receive a Fairtrade Minimum Price for their cotton, which acts as a vital safety net and gives the stability that is needed to plan for the future. But it doesn’t stop there. They also earn an extra sum – the Fairtrade Premium – which farmer groups can then decide democratically how to best use, to improve quality and productivity for their crops and social projects such as education and health services, to benefit their communities.

The story of their journey from seeming hopelessness to being the only Fairtrade certified cooperative in East Africa to trade cotton lint, is one of hard grit and determination. It is a promise for a better future and a beacon of hope for the transformation of the cotton value chain internationally to improve the situation of farmers.

Unlike other cotton cooperatives in Africa, where ownership of their crop ceases at the point of sale to the ginnery, this cooperative contracts the ginning and retains ownership of the cotton.  This enables them to increase their income by at least 30% through the sale of cotton seed and cotton lint thus moving the farmers up the value chain, a significant structural shift for the farmers in the world of cotton production.

Now, with the additional premium that they can achieve through the sale of their cotton as Fairtrade, their income will increase further and they will be able to begin to address some of the challenges faced in areas like access to clean drinking water.

Sadly however, many more cotton farming cooperatives around the world could benefit from Fairtrade certification, but are struggling to get enough sales to drive bigger change in their communities.

There seems to be a trend in the UK now to demand to know how clothes were made, but it would be good if this could extend further to the cotton farmers picking the cotton. This lack of awareness if resulting in desperate poverty. Do fashionistas realise that as many as 100m rural households – 90 percent of them in developing countries – are directly engaged in cotton production?

An estimated 350m people work in the cotton sector when family labour, farm labour and workers in connected services such as transportation, ginning, baling and storage are taken into account. Yet cotton farmers are at the end of a long and complex supply chain in which they are virtually invisible and wield little power or influence. With high levels of illiteracy and limited land holdings, many cotton farmers live below the poverty line and are dependent on the middle men or ginners who buy their cotton, often at prices below the cost of production.

I am excited that Red Nose Day on 13^th March will mean a brighter future for cotton farming communities in Uganda and I hope that everyone involved in designing and enjoying the T-shirts realise how special their cotton is and how transformational it can be to the lives of cotton farmers in Africa and around the world if we all choose products that change lives.

Watch this short film to learn about how cotton farmers in Senegal have benefitted from Fairtrade sales

Join Fashion Revolution Day on 24 April 2015. Turn an item of clothing inside-out and ask the brands the question: Who Made My Clothes? #FashRev

Together we will use the power of fashion to inspire change
and reconnect the broken links in the supply chain.

Meet Kady Waylie this International Women’s Day.

Kady is one of West Africa’s 10 million cotton farmers. She and her family grow their own food, but their cash comes from growing cotton.

The farmers’ group in Kady’s village in Senegal began to see benefits of Fairtrade with training courses they were given, to produce better quality cotton, to get higher yields, to improve health and safety.

When it comes to harvest time, they are paid a guaranteed price for their produce, above the market price. And the farmers’ group is also paid the Fairtrade Premium – the extra money that the group decides how to spend, men and women together.

The Premium has been used in Senegal to help many of the women and girls in the community – to build and furnish schools, and to buy packs of stationery, books and schoolbags for students. Some has gone on projects for clean drinking water. Some has been spent helping build and equip clinics, and to train villagers in health care and midwifery.

The processes involved have made groups of cotton farmers stronger and more able to look after their own interests, to deal with government officials, to engage with other groups.
Whilst International Women’s Day represents an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women around the world, sadly it’s not all good news.

Kady’s cooperative, and many others, are desperate to sell more of their cotton on Fairtrade terms because are not earning nearly enough from Fairtrade sales to lift them out of terrible poverty.

The price of cotton has slumped in the last 30 years, even though the cost of producing it has risen and that means farmers in places like Uganda, India, Kyrgyzstan and West Africa are struggling to survive.

Cotton farmers are at the end of a long and complex supply chain in which they are virtually invisible and wield little power or influence. With high levels of illiteracy and limited land holdings, many cotton farmers live below the poverty line and are dependent on the middle men or ginners who buy their cotton, often at prices below the cost of production.

Practically speaking, farmers selling cotton on Fairtrade terms receive a Fairtrade Minimum Price for their cotton, which acts as a vital safety net and gives the stability that is needed to plan for the future. But it doesn’t stop there. They also earn an extra sum – the Fairtrade Premium – which farmer groups can then decide democratically how to best use, to improve quality and productivity for their crops and social projects such as education and health services, to benefit their communities.

But farmers can only sell on Fairtrade terms if British shoppers continue to ask for Fairtrade cotton when we buy new outfits. Put simply, more brands using Fairtrade cotton means more money goes back to help women and girls in cotton growing communities.

There seems to be a trend in the UK now to demand to know how clothes were made, but not who grew the cotton that they are made from, and this lack of awareness is resulting in desperate hardship.

It would be good we all posed the question at the store till ‘Who made my clothes?’ That way, transparency in the garment supply chain can extend from the London catwalks all the way back to cotton farmers picking the cotton in Senegal.

Do fashion lovers realise that as many as 100m rural households – 90 percent of them in developing countries – are directly engaged in cotton production? An estimated 350m people work in the cotton sector when family labour, farm labour and workers in connected services such as transportation, ginning, baling and storage are taken into account.

To help increase sales for cotton farmers like Kady, fashion brands can now work with Fairtrade Cotton on two ways – either the finished product is certified as Fairtrade, or using the new Fairtrade Sourcing Program, they can commit to sourcing a certain amount of cotton on Fairtrade terms. Whichever route they choose, their commitment to Fairtrade Cotton means better lives for the farmers who grew your cotton.

Start asking questions when you shop for clothes this International Women’s Day and help women like Kady get a better deal so they can celebrate their achievements.

Watch this short film to learn more about cotton farmers in Senegal

Join Fashion Revolution Day on 24 April 2015. Turn an item of clothing inside-out and ask the brands the question: Who Made My Clothes? #whomademyclothes

Together we will use the power of fashion to inspire change
and reconnect the broken links in the supply chain.

When Charles Oboth was first asked to reopen the derelict cotton ginnery in Gulu, Northern Uganda, his response was a simple and strong ‘no’. The compound was overgrown with grass taller than him; the ginning machines were fifty years old and dilapidated. Gulu had been at the centre of a war for two decades and for Charles and his fellow Ugandan colleagues it was considered a no-mans-land. But the owner was persuasive and visionary, and eventually Charles gave in.

That was 2009, and just five years later the ginnery is unrecognizable. With Charles as General Manager, it has grown rapidly to be one of the largest ginners in Uganda, employing 350 people at peak season and buying conventional and organic cotton from 40,000 farmers. Many of these cotton farmers returned to their small farms from Internally Displaced People’s camps in 2008 and have had to rebuild their homes and lives from scratch. Collaborating with other ginneries in the North, the Gulu ginnery has supported the farmers with vital tools, access to a market, and free training in organic practices that increase their yields and sustain the health of their farms. 2,000 of the farmers are Organic and Fair Trade certified, so they receive an additional income per kg above the local price. Meanwhile ginnery employees are paid a fair wage and provided with free meals, uniform, access to healthcare and support to form workers groups. The ginnery has reintroduced entrepreneurialism and economic opportunity in a setting that saw most of the local economy wiped out by the war.

Challenges persist of course – Gulu is not an easy place to do business. The most basic infrastructure is still lacking: roads can get washed away in the rainy season, electricity is forever patchy, and it can take a full day for an engineer to come from Kampala to fix the generator if it breaks.

But the Gulu ginnery is an example of the power of the fashion industry when it is done right. Fair trade cotton ginned in Gulu travels onwards to Japan, where it becomes t-shirts and dresses sold to conscious consumers. In order to do more good, the ginnery needs new Fair Trade buyers. Natalie Grillon, an employee at the ginnery for the last two seasons, has established an enterprise called ‘JUST’ that supports buyers and designers to source ethically made materials, including cotton from Gulu. That means more demand for the ginnery to meet and so more support, training and money for farmers.

Charles and his Ugandan colleagues have built the ginnery’s success with sweat and tears. They sacrifice evenings and weekends throughout the season; they even offload cotton on Christmas Day. Nobody says it is easy. But up in the blossoming cotton fields of Northern Uganda, we can start to see what a Fashion Revolution really looks like.

By Tamsin Chislett – proud to be a previous employee of Gulu’s cotton ginnery.