This 'Grab' bag is from the Natural Cotton collection. Naturally occurring dyes from tea, terminal chelsula, madder and pomegranate are used to colour these hand spun woven designs made by underprivileged women local to the Pokhara area of Nepal.

Fair Trade does make a difference. 

At the production centre in Kathmandu,  young women who had been trafficked as children and subsequently rescued by The Esther Benjamins Trust are employed under fair trade conditions.  After a time of rehabilitation with the charity and as soon as there is a permanent vacancy, the older girls (min age 17) are offered the opportunity to work at the production centre.  They are provided with safe, secure accommodation with a house mother to care for them and trained at the production centre.  They are paid a good monthly wage, holiday, sickness, hospital fees and maternity pay and helped to adjust to life.  This is a successful demonstration of Aid and Fair Trade working together to help change the lives of young women for the better, permanently.

Fair Trade empowers disadvantaged young women to make choices.  When these young women are initially returned from a horrific life of abuse, they find themselves outcast from their communities, branded ‘unclean’ and unwanted with no future to look forward to; they are at very high risk of being re-trafficked.  However, through Fair Trade employment they often find themselves the highest income earner in a family and able to provide a valuable contribution, resulting in many of the girls being invited to live with relatives locally.  The difference is that the girls are empowered to make a choice, they are no longer desperate for acceptance, they are valued and feel valued.

Women in the UK are empowered to make a choice.  Luckily we don’t often have to make a choice between eating to survive or buying a new handbag; more often it is a choice between which handbag, shoes or clothes that provides the quandary.  Now, through informed choices, women in the West are empowered to make a positive difference to people and/or the environment by choosing Fair Trade and ethical fashion and accessories.

By buying this bag, you are offered that choice by providing a range of quality handbags designed led with the western women in mind.