The Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade Craft Sale coming up next week is all about working in small ways around the world to lift people in developing countries up out of poverty.
The Cariboo Bethel Church in Williams Lake has supported the Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade project for the past 20 years or so and is thrilled with the community support the sale has received over the years.
“The community gets it,” says Adina Neufeld who heads up the program.
“It has grown. We can’t do this without community support. We are doing this together. The community is partnering with us.”
Ten Thousand Villages works in partnership with disadvantaged and vulnerable producers, helping them find a market for their products at a price which reflects the true value of their labour so that their situation improves, their communities develop and they can live in hope and confidence.
“Fair Trade is needed because there are still far too many people in the world today who live in poverty, who are not treated with respect, whose lives are insecure, who do not receive a fair income for what they do or a price for their agricultural produce that covers the cost of production, let alone provide a decent living for them and their families,” Neufeld says.
She says the projects Ten Thousand Villages supports provide a consistent, reliable income for participants that benefits the individual producers and their communities.
The program also supports projects that provide safe working conditions, protect the environment and ones that empower women in countries where women have little power.
To encourage community development the program also supports the production of high quality hand-made products for the global market.
There is a long list of fairly traded items from more than 25 countries that will be available at the Ten Thousand Villages sale Nov. 21, 22, and 23.
Times are 3 to 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and 10 to 4 p.m on Saturday.
In addition to gift items there will be food items
“We’re getting more into organic, fair trades items such as teas, spices, chocolate oils, coffee, and molasses, “ Neufeld says. These include tea from Nepal and nuts from Brazil and Peru.
Among the gift items are flutes from Bangladesh; ceramics, pan flutes, rain sticks and bird whistles from Peru; gourd rattles and stone sculptures from Kenya; bamboo didgeridoos from India; banana leaf and bamboo baskets from Bangladesh and Vietnam; tea lights from the Philippines.
Items also include Tree of Life metal sculptures made in Haiti from recycled oil barrels.
There will be all kinds of exotic jewellery: nut and palm tree seed necklaces from Equador; shellfish and pearl items from Indonesia; bone, copper and glass items from India; earrings from the Philippines and more.
And for visitors needing a break from shopping or a quiet moment for visiting there will be a kitchen set up offering a traditional ethnic lunch with Mennonite sausage and borscht.