Fairtrade Cotton Chrimbo

That time of year's come round again.... advent calenders are being opened each morning up and down the country, and people are preparing themselves for the great Christmas-present-shopping-slog. We suggest making it easy for yourself and doing it from the comfort of your own home: take a look at our Christmas present ideas online.

Why not choose to hang up an organic Fairtrade cotton stocking this Christmas Eve. Or fill a Fair Trade Christmas sack with goodies for your loved one. Decorate your tree with Fair Trade biodegradable garlands and stars, and sit down to your Christmas lunch at a table covered with an organic Fairtrade cotton table-cloth, decorated with hand-appliquéd holly leaves.

Christmas is a time for giving. Buying Fairtrade Christmas gifts ensures your purchases make a positive difference to the lives of the skilled farmers and artisans who cultivated the crops and spun, wove and crafted the final product. Make it a Fairtrade Christmas.

Meet a Cutter

This is Pandiyan. He is a cutter at the KVKuppam Tailoring Society. He works as part of a team of 12 cutters who prepare the pieces for the tailors to sew together into garments. Being a cutter is a senior position within the Tailoring Societies as it's essential that this first stage of the Cut Make Trim stage of production is done accurately and swiftly. Like most of the cutters, Pandiyan joined the societies as a tailor, in 2004 he was promoted to the position of cutter. He has worked at the societies for 19 years. He lives with his wife in the village of Mel Vilachule on the outskirts of KVKuppam.

It is very common for members of the Tailoring Societies to stay working at the units for many years, some of the original tailors employed when the company started in 1985 are still working there. This is because opportunities for well-paid stable employment are few and far between in rural South India. Bishopston Trading Company is proud to be able to offer long-term employment to the villagers of KVKuppam and enable them to earn a living wage for themselves and their families without having to leave their villages and move to the urban areas of the country.

Cotton On Too...

Earlier this year we worked with Oxfam, Soil Association, Bristol City Council and Bristol Fairtrade Network to host the Cotton On conference here in Bristol.

The event was a great success:

130 delegates; speakers ranging from Lucy Siegle of The Observer to representatives from Monsoon, the Fairtrade Foundation, Pesticide Action Network, Labour Behind the Label, Traidcraft, Ethical Fashion Forum; workshops on Organics, Fairtrade, Supply Chains, and Sustainable Design. And the day was finished off with a huge Open Space discussion between all delegates focusing on the key issues of the day and facilitated by William Lana of Green Fibres.

After a brief recovery period we got back together as the Cotton On team and after looking through all the feedback forms decided there was a big demand for a sequel to take what had been learnt from this one and move forward. Interestingly some of the most compelling feedback came from students who'd attended the event because they were interested in the issues and found their fashion/textiles/design tutors unable to teach them anything about it.

With this in mind we got Fashioning an Ethical Industry on board and decided to organise a sequel aimed specifically at young people with more interactive sessions and with a broader scope - textiles/fashion rather than just cotton.

And here it is: Fashion Victims, hosted by UWE on Friday 26th February, open to all 14-18 year olds and their tutors. Workshop sessions will encompass: Textile Waste, Recycling and Climate Change; Fairtrade Cotton; Garment Workers' Rights; Sustainable Design; Organic Supply Chains. The day will be opened by Tara Starlet of BBC3's Blood Sweat and Tshirts fame, and is sure to be as informative and inspiring as this year's event.

Book your place online here.

Fair Trade Blogging

I wanted to reassure you that despite my lack of postings over the last few weeks, I haven't forgotten about blogging. In fact on the contrary, I've been busy reading other people's blogs!

Here are four of my favourites that I wanted to share with you: together they give a nice picture of the diversity of the Fair Trade movement and the interactions between producers and buyers.

http://www.pachacutifairtrade.blogspot.com/

Laden with awards and rightly so, Pachacuti are the real-deal. Carry's blog offers a window into the Fair Trade fashion-house, with fascinating stories from her producer-partners in the mountainous areas of Ecudor.

http://blog.shared-interest.com/

Shared Interest are the UK's Fair Trade bank, they finance Fair Trade producer groups all over the world. Don't let the recent crisis tarnish your view of all banks, Shared Interest is exemplary and their blog reports on their work with producers and with the Fair Trade campaigning movement here in the UK.


http://www.ubuntu-trading.com/blog/

The soft-drinks industry has become emblematic of our globalised world and its inequalities. But Ubuntu Cola proves that it can be part of the solution. This blog by Elod Kafaukoma is a very personal account of life and Fair Trade from the producers' end.


http://www.scottishfairtradeforum.org.uk/blog/

Second only to arch-rival Wales in the stakes for the world's first Fairtrade Countries. The Scottish Fairtrade Forum contains a wealth of information on the campaign for fairer terms of trade.

Bishopston Trading Malmesbury

Here are some photos of our new Malmesbury shop: from a work in progress, to the opening party last Saturday featuring plenty of Fairtrade bubbly, kindly donated by the co-op across the road, and a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony with the town mayor. Hope to see you there sometime soon.

Fair Trade Bucks the Recession

Whilst many retailers are closing stores or even leaving the high street altogether, we are proud to announce the opening of our fifth store today!

To the delight of green fashionistas and ethical consumers across the west-country, our range of organic Fairtrade cotton clothing is now available at 11 High Street, Malmesbury, Wiltshire.

For 24 years we have worked in partnership with the village of K.V.Kuppam in South India, providing long-term, stable employment to hundreds of local villagers. The original inspiration for the company was the simple assertion made by one of the villagers, that as skilled craftspeople they need work not charity. This has remained the founding principle of the business.

The recent collapse of an economic system based on short-term profits and disregard for the welfare of communities, has only served to further motivate the members of our workers' cooperative to extend our business model that is based on partnership, transparency and fairness. Opening a fifth shop enables us to maintain (or fingers crossed, perhaps even increase) our level of orders with our partners in K.V.Kuppam, ensuring they can continue to offer full-time employment to all their members.

The fifth shop is the latest addition to our modest chain that includes, Bishopston Bristol, Bradford on Avon, Glastonbury and Totnes, as well as our thriving Mail Order and Wholesale departments.

With concern for the environmental and social effects of our shopping habits increasing every day, Fair Trade makes sense, and is becoming the first choice for discerning shoppers. We are proud to be expanding during these challenging economic times.

Meet a Tailor

Now that our new range is available online and thousands of Autumn catalogues are winging their way to our loyal customers, I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce some of our partners in K.V.Kuppam who work in the tailoring units. In the photo below are best-friends, Premlatha (in the blue sari) and Chitra (in the yellow).

Premlatha is 34 years old. She has worked at the tailoring units since 2003, before which she was a housewife. She began her career at the tailoring units as a tailor, and then in 2006 was promoted to the position of Mahathmagandhi Society Clerk. [Mahathmagandhi is one of the Tailoring Societies who work in the units, the societies are self-governing, democratically organised groups - like workers' co-operatives. Each society has a clerk who is responsible for the administrative work of the society and quality control.] She lives in KVKuppam with her 75 year old father and her two sons, Gokul who’s 12 and Parthasarathy who’s 8. Her husband died several years ago. Like many of the workers at the tailoring units, she cycles in to work each day.

Chitra is 31 years old; she married her husband Ganesh in 1998. They have a son Saivishnu who’s 10, and a daughter, Bravinsha who’s 8. She joined the tailoring societies as a tailor in 2003, was promoted to clerk in 2005 and since 2008 has been both the clerk and the supervisor for Kamachiyamman Pettai Society. Before working at the tailoring units she was a housewife. Like Premlatha, she is the sole bread-winner in her household: her husband previously worked as a market trader but his business failed a few years ago and he has been unable to find other employment since then.

The K.V.Kuppam Tailoring Units have 2 key employment policies:

1, Members should not only show the capacity to learn the necessary skills for job, they must also be from economically disadvantaged families.

2, Only one member of each family is allowed to work at the units.

These two policies ensure that the opportunity to have a stable, well-remunerated job within the K.V.Kuppam area, reaches those most in need of work, but also that the work is spread to as many households in the area as possible. Like many of the members of the tailoring societies, both Chitra and Premlatha are the sole wage-earners in their families - they support their families with the wages they earn at the tailoring units.