December 12, 2007
by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE – A non-profit organization related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has launched a Fair Trade Web site aimed at helping disadvantaged Peruvian artisans find a new marketplace for their goods and earn a sustainable wage in return.

The Partners for Just Trade (PJT) Web site (http://www.partnersforjusttrade.org/) makes it easy to purchase Peruvian handcrafts and other products online and educates consumers about the meaning of fair and just trade.

PJT is a proponent of Fair Trade – a model of international commerce that ensures farmers and workers in developing countries receive a just price for their products, which helps them compete in the global marketplace and promote development in their financially strapped communities.

"We are committed to helping producers help themselves through our Fair Trade relationships," said Carrie Hawthorne, PJT's executive director. "Fair Trade opens a door to the global marketplace and producers in developing countries, even in the most rural of villages, are able to create a sustainable business."

A fair wage enables artisans to provide food, shelter and medicine for their families and educate their children, while reclaiming and asserting their economic, political and social rights. Fair Trade also focuses on establishing long-term relationships with producers.

Items for purchase on the cyber-marketplace range from colorful handbags and backpacks to hand-woven cotton shawls and socks made by Quechua-speaking women who often knit the socks with bicycle spokes when they don't have enough knitting needles.

Visitors to the Web site can buy friendship bracelets, necklaces, coin purses and wallets. There are also ceramics, toys and accessories for babies, and religious items such as nativity scenes and pastoral stoles.

"Our Web site enables us to widen our consumer base and makes it easier for people to have access to Fair Trade products," Hawthorne said.

PJT is related to the Presbyterian Hunger Program's Joining Hands Network that cultivates global partnerships between impoverished artisans and conscientious consumers. In addition to Fair Trade products, the group addresses the root causes of poverty through education, solidarity and a commitment to trade justice.

The group, which receives strong support from Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery – which is a Joining Hands partner in Peru – works to benefit the artisans by reducing the number of middlemen and minimizing overhead costs to return up to 40 percent of the retail price of an item to the producer.

PJT came about after a handful of Presbyterians visited Peru in Sept. 2002 through the Joining Hands Network, developing long-term relationships with those they befriended in the South American country.

The travelers returned home and started organizing to receive Peruvian handmade products, which they began to sell while working to establish a nonprofit agency that eventually became PJT in 2005.

Through their Peruvian partners, PJT is working with more than 230 artisans from more than 20 cooperatives helping to improve their income while empowering them to work in their neighborhoods and operate their own businesses.

Through this partnership, PJT works with artisans who live in poverty and with groups who have a minimum of five people from different families.

PJT, which is a screened member of Co-op America's Green Business Network and also the Fair Trade Federation, is based in the St. Louis offices of Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery.

Presbyterian News Service