Odara/Forests of the World

Odara works directly with artisans, small producer groups, and cooperatives in Brazil. Odara offers its producers the highest marketable prices because they never work with intermediaries and maintain a low overhead. They assist producers in designing new products, controlling quality, and resolving conflicts and concerns whenever they arise. They stay as close to each craftsperson's traditional designs as possible so as not to lose the cultural integrity of the craft, and buy only environmentally and socially sustainable products.

Art D'Vine

This unique craft is the result of a project by the Family Assistance Promotional Service (SERPAF), a private, not for profit organization which provides free schooling and vocational training for poor children in Minas Gerais, Brazil. SERPAF offers daycare, pre-school and elementary school to 580 children ranging in age from 1 1/2 to 16. The children are in school for ten hours each day. They receive three meals a day and participate in sports, theater, and other recreational and cultural activities in addition to receiving formal education. The older children, between the ages of 9 and 16, attend the vocational training workshops two hours a day in woodworking and vine crafts, basketry, weaving, sewing and embroidery.

The children who make the vine crafts begin their work by cutting large vines of the trees in nearby forests. The removing of the vines is a sustainable practice because the vines are parasites that strangle and kill the trees. The children choose vines of various colors and sizes, keeping in mind the designs they wish to produce with them.

The vines are brought back to the workshop, dried and cut into 1/4" cross-sections. The children glue the cross-sections onto frames and wooden boxes, which they also make, creating patterns and designs using the natural colors and shapes of the vines. It is a long process of sanding a filling the cracks, until finally they end up with a flat, smooth surface and a surprisingly intricate geometric pattern of shapes and colors. No two are ever alike.

The Family Assistance Promotional Service has been conducting this project for nearly twenty years. SERPAF's prime objective is to promote and protect the rights of poor children and to prepare them for adulthood, giving them "a sense of solidarity to participate in society as active subjects with dignity and self-respect."

Balata Rubber Crafts

Balata used to be one of Brazil's chief exports. It was used in the manufacturing of golf balls, machine belts, insulation material, cement facing, and aircraft tires. Historically, rubber tappers worked for powerful contractors who exported the crude rubber primarily for US manufacturers. Under a system of debt bondage, the rubber tappers were given equipment and food credit from the contractor which would later be subtracted from the tappers' earnings when they returned with the rubber. The contractor had absolute control over the tappers because he knew that they were too poor to buy their won supplies, and he could thereby charge whatever prices he wanted.

For many years, the United States controlled (through purchasing) 80-90% of total production of balata in Brazil. The exploitative working conditions, as well as the emergence of cheaper synthetic materials, led to the demise of Brazil's rubber marketshare in the US. When Brazil lost its US market, the industry collapsed, and the majority of tappers were forced to take jobs in other industries destructive to the rainforest like gold mining and timber.

Today, Brazilian balata has no use except for the artisans who make the rubber crafts. Balata rubber, not to be confused with seringa rubber (used to make tires, rubber gloves, surgical equipment, etc.) is a dead industry. Few artisans have the capital to finance balata tappers to extract rubber. Those who do are only able to contract a small group of tappers who can only extract a small quantity of balata.

The sale of Rainforest Rubber Crafts is part of the project to assist in the revitalization of the balata rubber industry in Brazil, not an industry to exploitation, as it was in the past, but one of cooperation between the artisans and the rubber tappers.