About Fair Trade
"Two billion people – a third of humanity – still survive on less than $2 a day" according to the Fairtrade Foundation. "Unfair trade rules keep them in poverty, but they face the global challenges of food shortages and climate change too.
Fairtrade is a people's movement for change that aims to tip the balance of trade in favour of poor producers. We all need Fairtrade more than ever and we all have the power to create positive change for people and planet."
Etica and Ella work with the highly favoured Fair Trade production organisation Craft Resource Centre in Calcutta, India.
CRC is an WFTO (formerly known as IFAT) member since 2004 and is also registered and endorsed by Fair Trade CRC provides education, training and employment for small communities of craft-people from tailors and weavers to leather-workers and embroiderers, situated throughout the slums and rural areas of India.
They work with 58 different producer groups across India, 35 of which are involved in the export market. CRC helps craft-people to sustain their art and build economic stability. They ensure that newly generated income leads to an improvement in the quality of people’s lives such as access to educational and health care facilities.
CRC also educate the values of equality and fair trade in the communities it works with, as well as furthering gender equity, checking on child labour and fair wages. Furthermore, CRC insists on environment-friendly production materials and methods and intervenes whenever improvements or corrections can be made.