Early mornings and late nights spent working
and trampsing around
Lima (in taxis driven by insane drivers of
course) have kept me busy
since my arrival to Peru. Today, Maribel,
Jorge, and I made our first
visits to see two artisan groups in San Juan de
Lurigancho, one of the
poorest parts of Lima.
The
first group we visited,
named Munay Rumi - quechua for “pretty stone” -
is a group of jewelers.
Munay Rumi is a very interesting artisan group
in the sense that it
consists of three women and one man, normally
jewelers in Peru are
men and it is rare to find a man willing to be
outnumbered by women.
The group met while working at a factory making
cheap wire jewelry.
After working there many years - nearly a
decade for some - one of the
artisans, named Eva (who we weren’t able to
meet today), asked the
others if they wanted to start their own
business. They did and continued
to make the cheap wire jewelry (to be honest, I
can’t picture the style
and don’t know the word “bisuteria” that they
said in Spanish) that they
sold around Lima. But they heard about Bridge
of Hope and approached
BOH to see if they could be involved in their
Fair Trade project. The
artisans had never heard of Fair Trade until
meeting BOH but have since
learned to appreciate what Fair Trade
offers.
Munay
Rumi is in the beginning
stages of building up their business and still
do not have many orders. In
fact, Partners for Just Trade has only ordered
two products, a necklace
and a pin for the Presbyterian Women. The
latter was an order of 500
pins which really boosted their finances and
allowed them to purchase
new equipment for their workshop. Ernesto is
older and more skilled in
jewelry making but the three women have been
attending classes in
jewelry making and are improving their skills.
I am pleased with the
newer designs and believe that their products
will become good sellers –
with the improved designs and with our new
website (I believe their
jewelry is more appealing to younger people).
They have started working
with a small, beautiful red and black seed from
the Amazon called
huayruro. I absolutely love this seed and am so
happy that they are
incorporating it into their work. The only
problem I see will be getting it
through customs…natural products are a lot
harder to get through
customs.
I looked at samples of some of their jewelry
and showed them which
of their designs, chains, and rocks would be
more appealing to foreign
markets and why. I also showed them shapes from
a book of Incan
weavings that could be repeated in their work.
Ernesto said he was very
pleased with what I was saying because normally
foreign visitors said all
of their designs were “pretty” but still, sales
had never taken off. They
will be making samples of several items and
we’ll be meeting again
before I leave Lima next Friday for the
provincia (what people from Lima
call the Andes region of the country).
We also
spent time working
through their pricing which was an important
process. We took a bracelet
they had made that they had priced at 30 soles
or about $10. BOH
increases the price by 20% to cover their costs
and then PJT increases
that price 2.5 times to cover our costs
(importing, administrative, etc.). It
was a silver bracelet with little charms
hanging off it. Despite being real
silver (with the exception of the crystal beads
they used) it looked quite
cheap and something that you could find in one
of those stores in the
mall that have a million cheap (and ugly I
think) things from China. We
calculated the cost of materials, mano de obra
(time), other costs, and
then the 3% they add to their cooperative fund.
That price came to 19
soles but they added an extra 11 soles (about
$3.40) because they had
seen in an American catalogue that a bracelet
like that had cost $10.
What they had forgotten to take into account
was the price increases that
PJT and BOH had to add. It was a good
exercise.
I have realized is that it is hard to price
an item from the start (of
which I’m sure many people who work with
artisans would say, duh!).
There are several reasons…when an artisan
creates an item they send a
picture (or if they live in Lima take a sample)
to BOH who then reviews
the product and suggests changes. The artisan
also puts a price on it
(taking into account the cost of materials,
time, etc.). BOH reviews the
product (giving suggestions on how to improve
if necessary) and then
sends the picture to us with the FOB price (the
artisan price plus 20%).
The problem is that it takes an artisan much
longer to make a product in
the beginning than after they have been
producing it awhile. Munay Rumi
sets their price per hour at minimum wage – so
in the beginning they are
only making minimum wage but as BOH has found,
once a group
becomes familiar with a product, they usually
can cut the time it takes to
make a product down to a quarter of what it
originally takes – or so
they’ll eventually be making 3 times minimum
wage. My questions to this
is: what if an artisan is slower and can’t
produce as quickly? Is this fair?
Does this way of pricing make sense? I will
learn more as I go along but
this is something to keep analyzing with each
group.
After
taking a short break from
the afternoon heat for a delicious lunch, a
huge plate of seafood (I have
decided to lower my vegetarian standards while
here to eat seafood so
that I that I don’t have to suffer from a pure
carb diet of rice, yucca, and
potatoes!), we headed up even higher in San
Juan Lurigancho to visit a
group called Warmi Llancashan. They live in a
neighborhood that they
squatted illegally within the past decade – the
government has chosen to
allow them to continue living there. They used
to live in the “provincia”
but there life was hard and it was difficult to
even put food on the table.
Warmi
Llancashan consists of 4
women, of which we were only able to meet with
one, Felicita. The visit
was a bit disappointing as Felicita is very shy
and didn’t know much about
their pricing nor did she have many new
products to show. They make
the friendship bracelets and a purse for little
girls. They are a newer
group and their skills are not very advanced.
They learned how to make
friendship bracelets a few years ago through a
church group.
I brought some new ideas for the group:
hackey sack, braided belt,
key chain, and a yarmulke that they will bring
samples of next month to
a meeting I’ll have with all the artisan
groups. Despite their lack of sales
for export, they have learned through Fair
Trade how to calculate pricing,
and that it’s more cost effective to buy in
bulk. This is a group that we
need to dedicate more time on training if we
want them to be
successful.
Today is Saturday and Maribel, one of the
dedicated BOH staff
members, and I will be heading to several huge
markets in Lima to look
at fabrics and other materials. My itinerary
has been adjusted and
become more finalized:
Today - 1/31: Visit artisan groups in
Lima
2/1: Travel to La Oroya to visit artisan
groups and then on to
Huancayo
2/2 - 2/5: Visit artisan groups in
Huancayo
2/6 - 2/13: Visit artisan groups in
Huancavelica
2/14 - 2/16: Revisit artisan groups in
Huancayo and see progress on
new products
2/17: Travel back to Lima and spend rest of
time there
2/21: Meeting with all artisan groups in
Lima
