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fair trade policy environmental policy  |
Coral Seed, UK / Bangladesh Coral Seed is a Partnership of 2 years, and is a BAFTS accredited supplier. Alan Flux was working in Bangladesh, and asked for my help in selling the products in the UK. We then formed the partnership to formalise the trade. Our core activities are developing and marketing hand woven silk, cotton and jute fashion and home accessories. Coral Seed forms partnerships with its producers and aims to sustain these partnerships by inputting design, suggesting new design directions as indicated by market trends and supplying constant constructive feedback regarding customer reaction. We have a designer who works with the producers in Bangladesh while we develop the market for the products in the UK, and intend to maintain a designer on a part time basis in the long term. Our aim is to ensure that local traditional skills are used to produce quality products and to establish these products in the mid to upper end of the market thereby ensuring a fair return to the producers. In the longer term, once the business is established we intend to feed revenue back to the NGOs in the form of development grants and working capital. The producers are village women mainly employed on a part time basis by NGOs. Our main supplier is Charka. Proceeds from Charka sales go to help support development programmes such as skills development, primary education, and training in health and nutrition. Charka has eight working field areas (villages), each consisting of a range of 6-40 women. It is dedicated to the principles of fair trade, fair prices, clean and safe working environments and self-empowerment.
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Our main challenge is persuading the UK retailer and consumer that these products are quality products- made in Bangladesh seems to be a problem for some of them. They expect everything to be low priced. We trade because we know that we are contributing directly to women's empowerment and increase in standard of living. We plan to work with more producers and also start trading with other countries in the next couple of years. Many people either do not know what fair trade is- or believe it is entirely food based. They need to understand that the prices we charge are giving a reasonable return to the producers and large multi- nationals can sell cheaper because wages are far less. People need to be more open minded and fair about what artisans in countries like Bangladesh can achieve. Hand made in Bangladesh does not mean cheap: a low price is a sweated labour price. Their skills are worth more than that.
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Heartfelt from Mongolia -Alan Flux on Coral Seed's new range of felt bags Mongolia's great natural product is wool - knitted, woven, felted; and so the bags [and other items] now being made in Mongolia for Coral Seed, under the 'Heartfelt' label, perpetuate a very long tradition. The nomadic herders use this particular felt to protect their gers [yurts] against the long sub-arctic winters; but Coral Seed's designer [currently working in Mongolia as a VSO volunteer] was inspired to find a more decorative use for this utilitarian product - decorative, but practical, as demonstrated by Coral Seed's current range of bags . Coincidentally, a small workshop trained to produce fur coats during the Soviet era was in need of help - and it so happened that their vintage East German fur and leather-sewing machines adapted perfectly to the pure sheep's wool felt.
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The bags are first sewn together by machine, for strength, and then over sewn by hand, and hand-embroidered with motifs often inspired by traditional Mongolian and Buddhist imagery; the range of hand-dyed colours swings from subtle to vibrant.
Perfectly in tune with fashion's current hand-made mood, these Heartfelt items
are a unique fair trade offer from a beautiful and distant land.... more will
follow, so watch this space... | |
