Fair Trade Producers from around the world
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Archana means "a thing of truth and beauty" in Sanskrit. It is a private business committed to helping Indian nationals by encouraging, developing and selling their traditional handicrafts. Producer groups range from single women sewing blouses to extended family groups making brass and shesham wood items. Archana is committed to the welfare of the producers and assists many craftspeople with banking, design, training, and management. Archana is headquartered in New Delhi, but producer groups are located all over the country. Global Exchange offers an extensive line of ironwork candleholders, blockprint tablecloths, and shesham wood boxes from Archana Crafts.
Archana Crafts
PO Box 7105
New Delhi 110 002 India
011-91-11-326-3830
011-91-11-301-2845 fax
Sarba Shanti Ayog, a nonprofit organizations, assists artisans in about 85 small cooperatives. Sasha Exports is the craft exporting branch of Sarba Shanti Ayog which offers services in design, management, and marketing. Some of the groups assisted include refugees and widows who practice traditional needlework, rural villagers who sew tablecloths in West Bengal, and landless families who weave textiles on handlooms.
Sasha Exports
011-91-33-244-9761 or 9766
011-91-33-475-6657
MarketPlace: Handwork of India is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping women and disabled persons in India become self-sufficient. We have been selling their hand-printed, batiked and embroidered reversible jackets, skirts and houseware textiles to happy customers for as long as we can remember.
All the social development work that MarketPlace does in India is facilitated by SHARE, an organization for marginalized women and people with disabilities whose name means Support the Handicapped's Rehabilitation Effort. The program allows them to earn fair wages, work in decent conditions and receive proper training and education, while creating beautiful garments that are worn and loved by women in the US. Marketplace currently supports about 400 families in and around the cities of Bombay, Kutch, and Bhavnagar (in Gujarath).
Divaliben is one of those artisans whose family has benefited from working with MarketPlace. She lives next door to three of her daughters and their families. "I started embroidering when I was 8 years old," Divaliben said. "We would help our parents in the fields and do work at home. When there was any extra time, I would pick up a needle and try different stitches with the help of my mother. When I was young, we would embroider things for the house and in preparation for my marriage. Now I am able to earn some money with my embroidery. That is good because I can no longer work in the fields."
Much of the money women earn in India contributes significantly to the family income, but their contributions go completely unrecorded and unrecognized by the formal sector. Women entrepreneurs typically provide at least one-half of the family income, and one in ten women are the sole breadwinners in the family. The earnings of the women are often more beneficial than the earnings of the men because they are usually directly spent on food, clothing, shelter and education. Crafts sales are an important source of independent income for many women living in villages all over India.
28, Suren Road
Andheri East
Mumbai 400093 India
011-91-22-832-5516
011-91-22-839-1603
partner@bom3.vsnl.net.in
PO Box 3600, New Delhi 110 024 India
Moon Sharma (contact)
011-91-11-683-9721
011-91-11-683-8885
tara.delhi@gems.vsnl.net.in