Jun 21, 2009
Posted by Carrie Hawthorne
June 19
On Wednesday in Cairo I met with
the staff and members of the board of directors
from Egyptian Hands (EH). EH does the
development work (capacity building and
trainings) with the producer groups involved in
Fair Trade in Egypt. They work with over 3,500
producers across the country. They have a very
different model than what we have worked with
in Peru or Cameroon EH is not involved in the
sale and export of products but instead leave
the export up to a different organization. They
used to work closely with Egypt Crafts Center,
a for-profit, Fair Trade organization and
member of the World Fair Trade Organization
(formerly known as IFAT), as the marketing,
sales and export arm of the Fair Trade
operation. As far as I understand, because of
differences they recently stopped working with
ECC and are looking to a different company,
Yadawee, to export the Fair Trade products.
Yadawee has worked exporting artisan products
for quite some time but has only recently begun
to be involved in Fair Trade (they have applied
for membership with WFTO).
I think this
model (working with two separate organizations)
could be feasible but it would take quite a bit
of coordination and effort in the beginning to
make the structure cohesive and one that
facilitates clear communication with the
producers.
One large concept that Im
trying to wrap my head around is that the
cooperative model and anything close to the
cooperative model does not seem to be
incorporated into Fair Trade here. So to
contrast with what goes on in Peru: the
artisans in Peru work together to establish
pricing on products and regardless of how long
you have been in the group or what their skill
level is, each member is paid equally according
to the amount of work/time they contribute.
Each member is given the opportunity to learn
all facets of the business from the
technical, artisan skills to bookkeeping,
material purchasing, sales, etc.
But
here in Egypt it seems as though nearly all (or
maybe even all) of the groups are structured
with a leader (which in the cases Ive seen so
far is the individual who started the group)
who is essentially the boss (who has the most
responsibility) and it seems is generally the
person who deals with the sales, owns or is in
charge of renting the workshop, takes loans out
to purchase new equipment, and who makes the
most money. (A surface level example of the
difference between the structures: in Peru I
met with every single member of the artisan
groups when I visited their workshops but of
the three Egyptian groups we have met with so
far, we have only met with one person the
leader from the group.)
As much as I
believe in the cooperative model, I also
believe that the definition of Fair Trade needs
to be fluid to a certain extent because if
this movement should encompass marginalized
people across the entire world and multiple
business sectors, it has to be flexible enough
to adapt to different cultures and
industries.
I do look forward to
discussion with PJT and with colleagues in the
Fair Trade movement about the Fair Trade model.
