Fair Trade Photo Greeting Cards from Peru!

Check out www.fairmail.info for a really cool new fair trade initiative from Peru. The world's first fair trade photo greeting cards (certified by the dutch association of fair trade shops). They have trained teenagers who used to live and work on the streets of Trujillo, Peru or worked on the cities garbage dump. Now these kids make pictures of the beauty around them. They get 50% of the profit of each card carrying their picture to finance their own education! That's on top of their livable wage and medical insurance for them and their family. The 9 teenagers they work with so far are developing their creativity. Not only artistically but also in shaping their own futures!

posted by FairMailPeter on 12/ 9/2007 9:54 am | COMMENTS (3)
Comments (3)

Thanks for the exchange Peter. Indeed a great initiative. I checked out their website today. This sounds like a really concrete and direct way of helping out these teenagers who are not holding out their hand but working hard on shaping a better future for themselves! I found that on Fairmail's website you can read more about the teenage photographers and send them a direct email. Too bad I can't write in spanish :-) I can't wait to receive the cards I ordered through the website. It was easy to order and I paid with PayPal. How else can we support this business?

Jami

posted by FairMailPeter on 12/10/2007 2:11 am

My sister used to do this with indigenous people in guatemala. It's a great idea. If you want to write in Spanish, previous commentor, you can just use babelfish.com, which will translate it for you. The fair wage needs to translate to both products and services.

I've built a business in the US, laborfair.com, www.laborfair.com, an online marketplace for temporary labor serving the household and personal services market. Any time someone wants to hire a plumber, housecleaner, pet sitter, or belly dancer--you can find them all for the fair and living wage on Laborfair.

Our goal is to contribute to more social and economic equality in our society by facilitating direct connection between consumers and service providers while advocating for the fair wage.

posted by jennaraby on 12/10/2007 12:23 pm

Dear Jennaraby,

Thanks for your enthousiastic reaction. I didn't know a similar project was started in Guatamala before. If you have a reference or a webpage of your sisters initiative I would appreciate it.

You are right about that the fair wage needs to translate to both the products and the services. In Fairmail's case the teenagers get paid for their services (packing the cards) and for their products (photographs). This money for their salary, education fund AND for their whole families medical insurance added up to a total payment of 68% above the local liveable wage in our first year of operation. The more cards we sell in the next years, the higher this percentage will be as the photographers receive 50% of the companies profit to fill their own eduaction fund.

Our most succesfull photographer David used to live and work on the garbage dump earning 300 soles (about $100) a month and is now able to go to a good quality private university in Peru to fullfill his dream of studying psychology and photography. Check his cards and profile on: www.fairmail.info/index.php?page=photographers

Great news if you ask me!

Chao, Peter

posted by FairMailPeter on 12/11/2007 4:48 am

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