Whenever anyone wears some superb accessory, people often comment on it and ask where that certain piece was made. What a lot of people are not aware of is that these pieces are often made in very poor or third world countries. What the customer is paying for it bears no resemblance to what the artisan is paid and this is where a lot of people learn some shocking truths. However, there is a movement towards fair trade and it is becoming more popular by the day. Fair trade jewelry, for example, means that the artisan is paid a good price for work undertaken and is often able to work in better surroundings than normal.
It must be known throughout the world by now that most artisans in third world countries get by on one dollar per day. This is surely starvation wages but it does not stop some countries taking advantage of this. This falls most heavily on the female gender since they are usually the ones responsible for getting their children through school with all the fees falling on their shoulders alone. Therefore, working for these tiny amounts of money just makes the downward spiral into abject poverty a certainty.
There are some companies with a social conscience for sure and it is these that have started to stamp out these bad practices. They normally buy up all the goods, at a reasonable cost, and then market them themselves abroad. In this way, the artisans have a definitive sale for everything that they make and they can learn to budget from the profits that they are making.
The companies who buy up all the goods do not necessarily make a profit from the onward sale of the goods. Rather, they use the system as a way of helping the poor to become independent of those bad companies who take advantage of them. Because they sell the goods on to charities or non profit organizations, the world is made aware of the plight of these poor countries and they are given a chance to buy the goods and help someone very far away.
Many of the earrings and bracelets have some wonderful tribal or ethnic designs which the western world cannot get enough of. Beautiful hand crafted beads means that the pieces have an individual look to them since the beads are all slightly different from each other. These can be used as focal pieces or even just to the beach depending on the size and shape of the finished piece.
Another great selling point for these artisans is that they often used recycled goods to keep the basic cost down. This, along with the sustainable materials that they use, makes them a superb 'green' product which is a great selling point for those in first world countries.
Indeed, they have recycling down to such a fine art that they even produce diaries out of materials other than paper these days. They use recycled cotton based material for the pages and leather for the covers which all come from sustainable and reliable sources.
Connor Sullivan recently purchased a couple of fair trade bags and jewelry for his wife and daughter. His wife loved the fair trade jewelry she received has a birthday gift.
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