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The Fair Trade Link is honored to welcome guest blogger Steve Glovinsky.  Order cheap evista online, With decades of experience with the United Nations Development Programme, Steve is uniquely qualified to offer insights into Mercado Global's innovative development model. Order iressa online without prescription, Steve's daughter, Joanna, billig capecitabine apotek, Illinois IL Ill., is our talented Production Manager in Guatemala. Steve recently visited one of Mercado Global's partner cooperatives, zometa kopen, φτηνές φαρμακείο epogen, Artesanas Atitlán, to meet the artisans and ask them questions about their work with Mercado Global, casodex online store. Cheapest evista price,

I am a development professional with 35 years in the United Nations Development Programme.  I have been to dozens of projects promoting community development, employment, osta alennus gleevec, Goedkope arimidex apotheek, women’s empowerment, microcredit, comprar en línea evista, Order capecitabine overnight delivery, etc. and also designed a few of them myself.  Joanna’s working for Mercado Global was not only a great excuse for a vacation in Panajachel.  I was also very keen on seeing what was so special about their business model, Rabatt kaufen arimidex.

So on Friday Joanna, Marisol - the microcredit officer - and I went across the lake to Santiago Atitlán, to visit the women of Artesanas Atitlán Cooperative.  There were about 8 of them, sitting around two rickety tables in the courtyard of Luisa, their leader.  They were busy making the complicated “volcano” endings for the bead necklaces that Nordstrom had ordered 1,550 of.  They were getting a relatively good wage at 8Q an hour.  The earnings went to the Cooperative where it was shared among the members, with some put aside for savings as well.  As the brochures say, educating the children seemed to be their most important priority.  I was also pleased to hear that their husbands were supportive, and happy about the income they were bringing in and what they wanted to do with it, order cheap evista online. Capecitabine online kopen, [caption id="" align="alignright" width="322" caption="Maya woman wearing beautifully embroidered güipil."][/caption]

It was good to see these benefits, which is how women’s cooperatives give their members the money and the confidence that can raise them out of poverty and beyond.  But more than this, acquistare online cytoxan, Ordering casodex overnight delivery, I was struck by the unique feature of this model - the link into the high-end retailers in the US.  A question I usually ask in community development projects is “What if you’re successful?”  Typically an NGO-supported cooperative will produce fine quality artisan work, but then a company says, order zometa, Ordering zometa, “Great.  We need 1,000 of these, αγοράζουν φτηνά arimidex, Purchase iressa online, in a month.”  And you are dealing with societies that have never heard of quality control or any other requirements needed to get beyond a local or a niche market.  But here the women’s skills are already highly polished, with a strong tradition of weaving and appliqué in the multiple colors and complex patterns of their traditional dress.  It seemed that their weaving, Kansas KS Kans., Köpa rabatterade casodex, color and design abilities transferred well to jewelry-making.  So when Artesanas Atitlán - with just a little training - was given the sample necklace and asked to deliver 300 in two weeks, they gave it a once-over and just said, California CA Calif., Oregon OR Ore., “no problem."  Between the three cooperatives working on it the order will get done, the quality will be good, comprar zometa de descuento, Rhode Island RI R.I., and they will be ready for more.

Also - it’s not “típico”.  The product is dialed way back to meet sophisticated American tastes.  When I asked the ladies if they liked the design, they just shrugged.  There is no way this could be mistaken for any of the necklaces in the stalls lining the tourist streets.  And I imagine that for companies like Nordstrom, the less touristy an item looks the better it meets their exacting standards.

It's all in the design.  An item has to look stylish enough to sell in Nordstrom, and it also must be able to be produced with the skills the Mayas have been proficient in for hundreds of years.  It is the key to the model, and I can see it working wherever modern designers working with traditional artisans are able to tap into and re-purpose deeply ingrained capacities and templates.

And one more thing – Mercado Global's products are popular with high-end retailers because of the new levels of global awareness.  For them, "fair trade" is the way they promote being "green".  My original perception, reinforced from so many NGO promotionals, was that for purchasers to feel they are helping preserve a traditional heritage, they need to get something resembling the actual traditional motifs.  In fact, this approach can actually turn a cultural symbol into a commercial product, weakening its value as an item that lives in the culture.  But with Mercado Global's approach, the Maya motifs can retain their unique cultural significance.  And the skills used to produce them can be preserved, because they now have value in the – yes – Global Market.  The women of Artesanas Atitlán Cooperative can be proud to be Maya, because Mayas are able to produce wonderful jewelry that fashionable ladies in America want to buy.  I told them, "If you are proud making it, they will be proud wearing it."

And that, to me, sums up the magic of the model.  Congratulations to Mercado Global!.

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