Preliminary Research - Summaries of Some Relevant Organizations

So to begin this direction of my project, I decided to choose a few organizations that I thought would have relevant perspectives on useful management tools for both small scale fair-trade artisans as well as the larger organizations that work with them.

I will give a general summary of the kind of relevant work that the three orgs that I've focused on, and then a more detailed analysis of what I could glean from the resources available to me online. The next step in my gameplan is to write up some emails to send to the various organizations, in hopes of gauging their interest in a project like Sahana Eden adapted for their field, as well as getting more information on the needs of both artisans and the organizations that work with them. This is so that even if they were not interested, perhaps a similar organization would be interested in using the tools.

I began with looking into Ten Thousand Villages, which was the organization suggested by Pat Tressel, the developer that originally put up the suggestion for this type of Sahana Eden implementation. TTV has a long history for a fair trade organization, and is quite literally one of the first such organizations. TTV links small scale artisans (usually working with a small scale middleman kind of org) with markets in the USA through a number of means, ranging from non-profit stores (There's one in Albany in Stuyvesant Plaza); community center, church, and school sales; as well as an online store.

I also looked into two other organizations that I was familiar with and have had contact with in the past. Women for Women International is a comprehensive organization that works with women from war-torn countries, including countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the DRC, and Afghanistan, among others. One of their main areas is helping women learn skills (artisanal and horticultural skills as examples) that will ensure greater economic stability and freedom. This front is that area that my inquiries will focus on. I am familiar with this organization because I sponsor a woman through it from the DRC (W4W focuses heavily on linking first world sponsors to be "sisters" and support a woman from a war-torn country to pay for her participation in the program).

The third organization is a smaller fair trade project called Women of the Cloud Forest, which connects products created by women in Costa Rica with consumers in the United States. The products consist of jewelry that is centered on the use of natural rainforest seeds as beads, as well as embroidered bags that feature animals from the rainforest in the designs. I came across this organization rather recently at a convention in Albany, although I had heard of them in the past. I got a chance to talk to the man who started the group with his wife there.

That's it for the summaries, the next post will go a little bit more in depth with some of the relevant workings of these organizations.