Featured Video - People Tree in Bangladesh
People Tree High Summer 2014 Bangladesh
People Tree
People Tree produce beautiful garments that create equally beautiful change somewhere in the world. The collection is full of life and love, with playful, quirky, wearable dresses and separates, a sort of Anthropology with a heart. Their designers work to produce garments that are beautiful, as well as caring, with an imaginative use of local skills. People Tree designs garments to be produced by hand as much as possible, so their products have small carbon footrpints. The people they work with, have some of the smallest environmental footprints in the world, as they live and work in communities without many of the essentials of modern Western life, including electricity. People Tree design with the goal of creating work in developing countries. They recognize that each choice they make in the design process effects the lives of their producers, deliberately choosing to utilize more labor intensive methods over less.
People Tree’s mission is to support producer partners’ efforts towards economic independence and control over their environment, as well as to challenge the power structures that undermine their rights to a descent livelihood. They work too protect the environment and use natural resources sustainably throughout their trading, as well as to set an example to businesses, of a Fair Trade model based on partnership, people-centered values and sustainability.
In Nepal, Peru and India, People Tree work with over 1500 artisans. They hand knit and crochet natural fibers including merino, alpaca, cotton and wool. Their knitters hand spin and hand knit organic yarns, they provide training and employment opportunities to the disadvantaged, and use their profits to run a school for 260 children. Working with traditional embroidery skills in India and Bangladesh, they also work with recycled materials such as old sari’s to produce stunning patchwork accessories. People Tree work closely with producers to revive traditional skills, and create livelihoods.
In Bangladesh, People Tree partner with Artisan Hut to provide work for 250 hand loom weavers. Hand weaving uses nine times more labor than machine produced textiles. That’s nine times more people provided with an income they can use to feed their families and send their children to school. Their partner producers earn up to double what they would earn in the conventional garment sector, providing them with the opportunity to escape poverty.
People Tree work to ensure ecologically sound methods of production and to minimize their environmental impact. Their cotton is certified organic and Fair Trade, while all their clothes are dyed using natural dyes, and they source as many products as possible locally, choosing natural and recycled materials wherever possible. They promote natural and organic cotton farming, and avoid using damaging chemicals in production. People Tree has promoted organic cotton farming for over ten years, and all their organic fibers are certified in India by Control Union. To ensure People Tree meets the Fair Trade principles set out by the World Fair Trade Organization, they work closely with over fifty Fair Trade groups in fifteen countries.
People Tree invite regular social reviews to ensure they continue to work in the best interests of all their stakeholders, from producers to customers. Since 1996 People Tree has been a registered and highly involved member of the World Fair Trade Organization. They also initiated World Fair Trade Day, endorsed by WFTO, the only global Fair Tradeevent, celebrated in seventy countries worldwide.
Safia Minney the founder of People Tree, founded the NGO in 1991 and launched the fashion line in both Japan and the UK in subsequent years. She was selected as one of the world’s most “Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs” by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, was awarded the Community Award at the annual Asian Business Awards, was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year in the Edge Upstart Awards in the UK, was a recipient of the Observer Ethical Awards for Fashion, and finally was recognized with an MBE for her services.
Website: www.peopletree.co.uk
