Fair Trade Week

The idea behind Fair Trade as far as I understand is to ensure that farmers in the developing world get a fair price for their produce.

But my question today is who decides what is included on the list and what isn't?

For instance in November 2007 I attended an event and happened to sit next to a guy from the Fair Trade organisation. I asked him how the female producers at Ethnic supplies could go about registering with Fair Trade. He looked me in the eye and told me that Textile and handicrafts are not included.

I asked him why and did he realise that he was possibly excluding two thirds of the world’s population from the opportunity of earning a fair wage for their hard work?

This is a figure I plucked out of the air and has no basis in fact per se, but I just wanted to make a point which was that if that is how Fair Trade operates then surely it is an unfair system?

Something else that troubles me is the fact that something like coffee leaves the developing world as a raw material and at that stage it is not worth a lot. The coffee houses in the west process it and add value, and charge whatever they like.

Is that fair or ethical even? How do governments in the developing worlds generate tax, if the real value of something like coffee is not realised until it hits the coffee houses?

I am by no means an expert at these things and I am merely raising them to generate discussion and debate.

Would a system that allowed value addition at base be a much better system for all? It works well here at Ethnic Supplies. Our ladies take whatever they can find useless grasses etc and turn them into these beautiful and useful items


this basket for instance is made from papyrus and raffia, the colour is achieved form dyes found in the root plants I am not aware that any of those raw materials being traded as commodities. However a finished basket like this enables a woman to send her child to school, pay for health care and could be the difference between the family going hungry or not. It makes an excellent bread basket and or bathroom tidy



This table runner is produced from combining raffia and cotton and the colours are from roots of plants. What is exciting about suing cotton in this way is that cotton farmers in Africa in particular were hit with an increase in second hand clothes that are donated by well wishers in the west but end up in markets being sold for very little, not to mention the subsidies that are given to cotton farmers in the US

Ethnic Supplies: Extreme poverty would continue to hit sub-Saharan Africa out of 80 countries for another 200 years

Ethnic Supplies: Extreme poverty would continue to hit sub-Saharan Africa out of 80 countries for another 200 years

Extreme poverty would continue to hit sub-Saharan Africa out of 80 countries for another 200 years

I sincerely hope not but according to the the Africa News Journal a newly published report from Social Watch.

What has worried us here at Ethnic Supplies are the implications for women and children, further more that even thsoe countries that had made real progress in terms of getting the general population out of poverty are at a stand still.


The million dollar question is how can this be avoided? How can a continent that is rich in diamonds, Oil etc be facing this prospect?

Waht are your views?

Primark without the Ethical Tag

I watched the news about Primark on BBC news at 10:00 with interest. You can follow the rest of the story here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7824291.stm

I am not surprised that Primark finds itself in this situation. As someone that works alongside textile and handicraft producers in the developing world I can safely say that there is now way a company can churn out that amount /number of garments without someone somewhere being exploited.

In order to comply or call yourself an ethical provider you have to "police" your suppliers to ensure that they subscribe to your ethical agenda. Here at Ethnic Supplies LTD we do not work with anyone we have not met and even when our producers are required to prove that the work is there own. We inspect their workshops annually to ensure that for instance child labour is not used.



Flotea owner and founder of Marvelous batiks, our Textile producers in Tanzania









Marvelous Batiks workshop in Dar-es Salam



I remember in our first year of trading we met a woman in a handicraft market in Kampala Uganda. We bought a couple of jute bags from her that we thought looked really nice and very well made. She informed us that she was a partner of a Kikuyu woman based in Nairobi Kenya.

The bags were very well made and we had a feeling our customers would love them. We sent a sample to our contact in Nairobi and asked her to help us find the kikuyu woman who apparently made these bags before we could establish a working relationship with the woman in Kampala.

It took our contact nearly 6 weeks to get to the bottom of what was going on, but it transpired that the bags were actually made in Thailand and the Kikuyu woman was merely a distributor to others such as the woman we met in Uganda. Needless to say that was the end of that and it goes to show how vigilant you have to be in order to claim that you are an ethical company!

Ethnic Supplies: £ 1 for the deserving poor

Ethnic Supplies: £ 1 for the deserving poor

£ 1 for the deserving poor

I came across this article and it got me thinking about the whole notion of the deserving poor. As a Social Housing Practioner, this is a term I have come across many a times in books and articles that chart the history of social Housing in Great Britain.

The philanthropists referred to in this article are all too familiar, Octavia Hill, William Sutton etc are some of the pioneers of social housing for the deserving poor. If you walk through areas of Marylebone in London signs of Octavia Hill’s philanthropic activities are still visible today.

I must admit that, this notion of the “deserving poor” has left me a little unsettled in far as my own views are concerned and I couldn’t help but wonder whether I too practice according to that notion.

In my time a Housing Manager I looked after a traveller’s site owned by the local authority I worked for at the time. I visited the site one afternoon and on my way out I found a £1 on the through road. I put it in my pocket and went back to the office. As I left the office that evening I came across one of our tenants who regularly sat on the bench outside our office and consumed can after can of beer or cider. I remembered the £1 I had found on the Travellers site and I wondered whether I should give it to him, Christmas was only two days away and I thought he probably needed this pound more than I did. I however very quickly changed my mind as I thought he will only go and buy more alcohol!

I greeted him and walked on. I drove to my local supermarket and found an Eastern European woman at the entry selling the “Big Issue” magazine. I promptly reached into my pocket and gave her the pound I had found. I decided that she deserved this pound more than the man outside our offices because she was doing something to help herself.

This is the same concept I employ at Ethnic Supplies, seek out women who are doing something to help themselves out of poverty and help them access world wide markets with their wares.

Is wrong therefore for international donors to insist on good governance in those countries that Aid is given?

Although I wholly subscribe to the idea of good governance in African countries and in fact fully believe that some of the challenges the continent faces today are down to bad/poor governance, I had not entirely considered the link between, International Aid, the notion of good governance.

In my mind it does make sense that unless there are structures in place to ensure that the Aid goes to the people for whom it is intended then the poor of the developing world will continue to miss out. These structures are part of good governance/administration.

This raises another question for me, how realistic is it for donor countries to insist on good governance as a condition of Aid, and what exactly is meant by good governance in this respect? My understanding of good governance, in this respect amounts to accountability and openness, both of which are routed in trust, trust by the people of those charged with administering the Aid.

How then can good governance be achieved? A quick short answer is “with great difficulty” This is due to that word again “Trust”, in his book Being Afrikan Mandivamba Rukuni puts forward an often overlooked view of why this Trust may elude many African nations. The scramble and partition of Africa displaced peoples from areas of origin and brought together people that for instance do not speak the same language and differ in culture; an example of this is seen in North and southern Sudan, North and Southern Uganda etc.

In my mind this created a form of prejudice “tribalism” and this is a huge contributing factor to the lack of good governance. Different tribes with nothing in common per se other than belonging to a border created by imperialism where thrown together, which makes it near impossible for trust and harmony to exist.

One would argue that, that is a long time ago and surely it is time to move on. I would agree with that point of view entirely as it is unlikely that history can be reversed, but it is not up to me and I suspect I am in the minority with this point view as was evidenced in the aftermath of the Kenyan elections earlier this year.

We as Africans can certainly work on unity and trust if we are committed to and I strongly believe that would go a long way in resolving some of the challenges the continent faces. Trust in each other, trust in our governments etc? Could this also be the answer to the “brain Drain” touched on by the article?

Merry xmas from Ethnic Supplies

It's been a great year for us and I hope it has for you too. We are very excited about things to come. A big thank you to all our customers, friends and supporters.

Much love from all of us at Ethnic supplies