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Hope For Women
Himalayan cards made with flowers
For some this time of year is when people send and receive cards and gifts.
If you live in the USA or Canada there's one company which may have attracted your attention with their Fair Trade Cards and Gifts.
Hope for Women was the brainchild of Evan Godsmith, who in 1993 was working for an NGO in the Indian Himalayan mountains and spotted local women making handmade cards and envelopes using flowers and other plants grown in the local mountains.
All well and good but they were earning a pittance for the many long hours of work and the skill was dying out.
Evan had the idea on returning back the the US of trying to import the cards and help the women start to create a more sustainable income.
Hope for Women was born.
Jewellery from El Salvador and Colombia
The idea spread and within a few years the company was also working with women in El Salvador and Colombia.
Exquisitely crafted jewellery was added to the products they were selling.
17 years on and Hope for Women products are now sold in hundreds of small and medium size retailers
Sumitra
India
Sumitra's grandmother worked in the tea gardens in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas - a miserable job.
Sumitra grew up helping her family survive. She received little formal education, which makes her commitment to her children's education even more powerful.
Her husband has a low-income job working for the state. The money she earns is what has enabled them to send their three children to school.
When asked what she will do with the extra income, Sumitra said that she would save for the future. Right now her family does not have any savings to rely on for hard times or old age, but with more income they will have more security.
Roxhanna
El Salvador
Roxhanna has two daughters, Stephanie (12) and Paola (4), and lives in El Salvador.
"I am proud that I have a high school degree, but to get a very good job you need to at least have a university degree, and that was out of reach for me. Hopefully my daughters can have better."
"I have the opportunity to provide a salary for my household, and I am an important person.
"At a craft fair I made cards in front of the Queen of Spain and El Salvadorian President! The Economic Secretary sat next to me at a meal and we talked and talked – what an opportunity! I am really part of something!”
“I love being around my daughters and family."
"Working here I can take care of my family’s needs and see after my kids.”
Rosalba
Colombia
"I have been in Sapia for more than two years.
Because of my age it is very difficult to find a job, but in Sapia the most important thing is how I work, and not my age.
I enjoy the work too because I love creating handicrafts."
Hope for Women on Twitter @hopeforwomen
FIND OUT MORE
You can see the beautiful products created by these women and read more stories on the Hope for Women website.
Watch a video about Hope for Women
Safe World promotes ethical traders who personally source their products from grassroots groups in developing countries, and whom they have personally visited.
"I believe that conscious shopping is one of the most effective ways in which we, as individuals, can help to change the world."
Chris Crowstaff: Founder of Safe World for Women.