Weaving Communities Together

Thursday, November 15, 2007

(Fair Trade Federation)The Community Friendly Movement (CFM) , a fair trade organisation based in New Delhi, India, aims to both create wealth for artisan communities and provide quality products to customers at competitive prices. They work directly with communities at the bottom of the pyramid to reduce the number of intermediaries in the chain.

Typically, the handicraft trade in India is highly fragmented and unorganised, says CFM co-founder Rahul Barkataky, and these disconnections prompted CFM’s founders "to think of innovative solutions to link artisans, local entrepreneurs, and customers." With that in mind, CFM works to improve production and the supply chain by bringing in process improvements through standardisation of the process.

A team of young designers and merchandisers identify artisan communities based on their skills, which are then matched with market requirements. Communities are approached through local NGOs or entrepreneurs who organise them and oversee the production process. Production is broken down into series of steps, with quality inspections as an integral part of each step. Then, CFM acts as a one- stop-shop for wholesalers/retailers who are looking to source handmade products - creating solutions within commercial interactions to directly impact producer communities. Presently, CFM engages 12 artisan communities from Gujarat to Andhra Pradesh.

One such community in Kutch in the state of Gujarat specialises in embroidery in Mushroo Silk and Cotton. The cluster consists of 375 women spread across 65 villages. The women have been trained in embroidery techniques by an NGO, Cohesion Foundation Trust Ahmedabad, while CFM provides design input. The embroidery is done at home in order to provide women with both an additional source of income and the opportunity to complete their household responsibilities. Last year, CFM alone provided them with employment for 80 days with wage distribution of 2,500 USD.

Another city in Gujarat, Tharad, is famous for its Soof embroidery of silk and cotton embellished with mirrors and beads. Here, a group of 150 women artisans design and create motifs based on the triangle, called soofs, with a painstaking technique that is counted on the warp and weft of the cloth in a surface satin stitch. They work under the supervision of a master craftsman, Dayaben B. Dohat, a national award winner for her craft. She, along with CFM, provide design input which the artisans convert into final products.

With CFM’s help, these and other unique products of artisans at the bottom of the economic ladder are seamlessly connected to customers in external markets.