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Hope and Preservation

With more than ten years working in relief and development for several international non-governmental organizations, Beth Sethi and Tammy Teske had seen the incredible benefits to families when poor women are economically empowered.  The pair met while working on disaster response issues for Northwest Medical Teams. They founded Bambootique in 2006 as a way to provide an outlet for the purses, candles, jewelry, handmade paper, scarves, and other handmade products they had purchased while traveling in Asia and Latin America. 

Bambootique seeks "to bring hope to vulnerable women through fair wages and preservation of their cultural heritage.” Beth and Tammy engage members of the Portland, OR community in this effort as customers and informed agents of social change. Bambootique focuses on women, because “we knew that, when women are economically empowered, they almost universally spend their additional income on food, shelter, clothing, education and medical care for their children,” Beth says.

For example, women in one group with which they work, Proyecto Eco-Quetzal, produce beautiful eco-friendly candles from the wax of the seed of the arrayan tree of central Guatemala. Production has also helped to reduce deforestation in the region since the income from the candles gives the indigenous people less need to clear cut the forest for farmland.  Deforestation in Proyecto Eco-Quetzal's project area has been reduced to 0.1%, in an area that was previously suffering from severe deforestation. 

Each sale made by Bambootique directly links a consumer to a woman artisan and her family, while providing unique products customers won't find anywhere else. As Beth and Tammy say, “while we believe in the importance of our mission, we hope it's our beautiful products that you bring you back again and again!”