Fair Trade Monitoring

Through regular follow-up visits and encouraging artisans to maintain documents, we have made progress in fair trade monitoring.  Having analyzed the data received, we have documented that on an average artisans earned US$4.38 per day while making handicraft fair trade products for us.  This in turn translates into a monthly income of over USD 100 which in the Indian scenario for artisans is a fairly decent wage. 

Saarthee Programme

Opportunities were created to identify the ongoing market trends in Europe and interact with the buyers of Fair Trade Organizations as well as meet the typical consumer of fair trade products through participating in the Saarthee Programme which supports Business Development Services (BDS), to develop high quality and effective business counseling services for pro-poor Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs),

Design workshop for producers through Kerry Evans from Serrv USA

Producers from all over India were introduced to customers’ profiles & preferences, product selection process and design inspirations.  Working with story boards, preparation & new trend conclusions as well as ways & ideas to be incorporated into their designs to make products more effective & saleable were taught in detail.  Quality standards demanded by US customers which have to be adhered to by Indian producers was documented in detail. 

Responsible Fair Trade Tours:

August   2007: Setem, Spain – 6 members

October 2007: El-Puente, Germany – 16 members

January 2008:  Shared Earth – 14 members

January 2008: Tear craft- 14 members

February 2008: Ten Thousand Villages, USA – 12 members 

Representatives from various partners came to study the impact of Fair Trade on Indian producers & artisans, and the social development. The Groups visited producers and artisans from Agra, Jaipur, Moradabad and Delhi. The hallmark of the tour enabled the group visit artisans’ houses, social projects and to get to know more about the life style of the artisans and the development that Asha has brought in their lives. The tour has helped the members to know in depth about the impact of Fair Trade on artisans and this in turn will enable them to sell more Fair Trade products in their shops by communicating this message to the consumers. 

The Setem Group basically works with Fair Trade shops in Spain as volunteers and are involved with Fair Trade advocacy campaigns in Spain. They have completed two major tasks of making a documentary on Asha and a research on “Impact of Asha & Fair Trade on Indian artisans”.