A visit to Nepal
I'm writing from Nepal where this week I'm working with People Tree designers Sachiko and Masako.
We are here to run workshops on quality control and design, together with six amazing Fair Trade producer groups.
KTS Khadgi family and the People Tree team.
Kathmandu is one of my favourite cities in the world, all those beautiful red brick buildings - every time I'm here I wish I had a better camera and a rack of the next season's clothes. The place and the people are so beautiful, I could shoot the next catalogue's photography here.
Sadly, people are flooding into Kathmandu valley because of the Maoist conflict and to add to the problems of a burgeoning population, it hasn't rained since November (due to climate change) and many people are forced to spend an hour or two hours each day, collecting water to drink. Luckily Kumbeshwar Technical School (KTS), where we are staying, is close to a source of natural spring water.
KTS started in 1983 to help a large community of an untouchable caste of people called 'Street Sweepers' - a euphemism, as they were expected to clear the street sewers of human waste. In return they received left over food from houses around which they cleaned. They barely had clothes, and were often sick due to the poor quality and unhygienic food they ate and the squalid shacks they shared with livestock.
When KTS first opened a child care centre for the children of the street sweepers, after a few days the children stopped coming - their parents needed them to work and didn't see the point of them learning to read and write. Then the founders found the solution; they offered short vocational training courses in knitting, carpentry and carpet making to the parents. The parents learned a trade and improved their earnings. With more regular earnings they were able to provide regular meals for their families and, convinced by the power of learning from their own experience, they started to send their kids to attend classes.
Children at KTS's primary school.
Today, there are 237 children aged 3 - 12 years old who receive free education at the KTS school and 150 trainees from all over Nepal graduate each year. Some start their own carpentry businesses in their home villages and other experienced women knit sweaters for People Tree. The community is now largely integrated into mainstream society and although still slightly discriminated against they have social and economic independence. Some of their children have become office workers, others have started their own restaurants, and one recently became a nurse, which would have been unthinkable twenty years ago.
Photo of me (middle) with Sunita Giri (left) and Tirtha Tandukar (right), part-time knitters at KTS.
Thanks to People Tree customers choosing a hand made KTS knit, 450 people are earning a good livelihood; donations and profits from People Tree and KTS are now funding the running costs of the entire school with their funds left to support other community programmes like a crèche, and a children’s home - as sadly orphans are now starting to arrive from the areas of conflict.
Not surprisingly, with unemployment and under-employment running close to 50%, at every Fair Trade project I visit I am asked the same question, by everyone from craftspeople right up to senior management: "Is People Tree going to be increasing its orders this year?" Fair Trade is not only about good working conditions and a fair price. It is about making products that employ a lot of peoples' skills to make, so that each product bought can benefit as many people as possible.
At Get Paper - People Tree's hand made paper jewellery boxes are made of cotton fabric off cut waste from the garment factories, and provide much needed work for the cooperative members.
