Nancy Chuang is a documentary and travel photographer and a professional designer. She has spent the last six months as a volunteer designer on the Thai/Burmese border, working primarily with Borderline, a women’s collective that helps community groups from local refugee camps sell their wares and receive basic services. Here’s Nancy’s account of some of the challenges of working in a transitory community:

“After 6 months of living on the Thai-Burma border, I’ve determined 5 areas that challenge me with nearly every new product development. 1)    LANGUAGE. All of Borderline’s artisans are minorities, thus Burmese is their official language but rarely their best language. Meanwhile, the translators are used for their Burmese-to-English language skills, not their understanding of sewing techniques. Miscommunication abounds. 2)    SKILLS. While Mae Sot is overrun with factories populated with cheap Burmese labor, our women have largely been lucky enough to avoid these places, attempting self-sufficiency soon after migrating to Thailand. The only minor downside is this means our artisans don’t automatically understand the production processes need to maintain quality levels. In addition, there’s a tendency in many Asian cultures to avoid disappointing people by always agreeing to anything. I may not be informed which skills are lacking until a few weeks later. 3)    URGENCY. “Thai time” (which is really “Burmese time” in this case) takes the idea of a relaxed pace to a whole new level.  A meeting scheduled for the early morning means the artisans show up 10 minutes before the shop closes. A promise to come today means next week. Borderline can only take handicrafts on consignment, so in the past there’s been little reason to suggest designs & deadlines to the artisans. Without upfront payment and without design direction, our women have grown accustomed to giving themselves very loose delivery schedules. 4)    CONSISTENCY. Even our Chiang Mai-based artisans can’t always find the same fabrics repeatedly. If it isn’t popular with local customers, eventually the shopkeeper will stop ordering it. Some of our Mae Sot and village-based artisans weave their own fabrics, but only one group dyes their own threads. So finding matching thread colors in the market is another challenge. In the Mae Sot shop we can call this “unique,” but our overseas retailers need consistency. We frequently face long waits until the correct materials are available to fill an order. 5)    STABILITY. Life on the border is volatile. People disappear without warning. Many of our migrants don’t have township IDs, let alone work permits. Some of our artisans are involved in political activities, often traveling back and forth across the border; they are safer keeping their whereabouts secret from their friends as well as the shop staff. Most of these problems aren’t preventable, but that’s part of the challenge. We can’t truly discuss problem-solving, we can only try to work with the problems in order to deliver a product that makes everyone proud.” --Nancy Chuang Click here to see products Nancy has designed with Bordeline and other partners

If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll remember our post on June 22^nd highlighting our collaboration with Hygieas.  For those readers who missed that post, we’re glad to catch you up! For our collaboration with Hygieas, we asked our fantastic partner Friends International to make customized recycled paper bracelets specifically for Hygieas’ NYC launch.  All of the launch attendees loved the bracelets, not surprising because they’re incredibly unique! With so many exciting events and collaborations at Global Goods Partners, we always want to make sure that our supporters know about the artisans we’re working with so we can share their stories with you.  All of our partners do amazing work, and we are thrilled to tell you a little bit about the Cambodian-based Friends International.  Founded in 1994, Friends International focuses their efforts on helping support marginalized children and their families living in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Honduras, Mexico, and Myanmar.  By teaching the parents of at-risk youth how to make bags and jewelry using materials like newspapers, magazines, sarong fabric, and rice bags, Friends International is able to drastically improve lives by providing parents with a stable, dependable income so that their children can go to school.  Friends International not only teaches parents skills to earn a livelihood, they also provide access to health care, education, and counseling services. There are over 10,000 street children in Phnom Penh, a staggering number highlighting the truly important work of Friends International.  One of the things we do at Global Goods Partners is grantmaking, and Friends International is one of the most recent grant recipients! Our grant is to support their Medical Resources Program, which provides basic medical care to nearly 7,000 youth living and working on the streets of Phnom Penh.  To come full circle and see how the skills Friends International teaches turn into amazing Fair Trade products, take a look at the beautiful Friends International items on our website.

We’re excited to present a new line of textile jewelry made by our partner in Mexico, El Hombre Sobre La Tierra (HST), which works on sustainable development projects with Mayan women in the Yucatan. Today, most Maya live in poor conditions, education levels remain low, and cultural norms limit women’s abilities to own land and work outside the home. The women working with HST’s income generation program are adept at the centuries-old embroidery tradition for which Mayan communities across Mexico are renown. But, they needed to expand their product line, and our clients love jewelry! So, we paired HST with volunteer designer Alessandra Plasa who is the founder of another fair trade organization, Via Nativa Imports, Inc, to create a new line of embroidered textile jewelry.  Alessandra usually works in wood, but take one look at the jewelry and see that her design talents transcend her medium. HST and Alessandra communicated via e-mail about possible jewelry designs and were able to fine-tune the products remotely. We love seeing such an amazing final product come from this successful collaboration!  The women of HST have harnessed their traditional embroidery skills to create textile jewelry that is beautiful, fashionable, and helps support themselves and their families. Check out our website to see what all the excitement is about and stay tuned for more styles in the coming months! Find our new textile jewelry here:  http://bit.ly/jnTFv5   [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_ofpW9xJI0&feature=youtu.be]

Yesterday we were a part of the NYC soft launch of Hygieas, the Global Association for Women in Wellness. Hygieas is an organization that harnesses the growing wellness industry for charitable purposes. Women in the wellness community are now able to join Hygieas and use it as a platform they can draw on to collaborate and network with other women in the industry. Our involvement with Hygieas began when they asked if we could design custom made fashionable bracelets as giveaways for women who chose to join the Hygieas community.  Obviously we were interested in Hygieas’ mission and decided it would be a great opportunity for us to get involved with!  Our Cambodian partner Friends International made the bracelets we supplied (see photo below for the finished product).  Keep following our blog to learn more about the wonderful work of Friends International!   To learn more about Hygieas and their work click here. [caption id="attachment_892" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The custom bracelet from Friends International"][/caption]

[slideshow]Today, June 20^th, marks the annually recognized World Refugee Day.  As such, we at Global Goods Partners thought it would be a great opportunity to tell you a little bit about our amazing partner, Heshima Kenya.  The naming of this organization was very deliberate because Heshima is the word in Swahili for honor, respect, or dignity, and restoration of human dignity is Heshima’s mission.  The organization endeavors to fulfill its mission by providing assistance to unaccompanied refugees arriving in Kenya as minors. To foster the growth and potential of these young refugees, Heshima grants them housing, education, medical care, and teaches them skills that will help them become self sufficient.  By providing these services, Heshima empowers young refugees and offers them resources to restart their lives in Nairobi.  Through Heshima’s Maisha Collective, young refugee girls and women make beautiful tie dyed scarves.  The skills they are able to gain learning the processes to create the scarves ensure them a livelihood.  You can see the amazing quality and gorgeous colors of the scarves on our website here: http://bit.ly/mtwAQQ. By purchasing these scarves, you can help do your part on World Refugee Day to help victims of war and national unrest.