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The Women behind our Fair Trade Paper

By Denise Attwood
September 2021

Sometimes things just don’t work out, even in Fair Trade. So we can either pivot and get creative or dwell in the loss of a good idea. Well we aren’t very good at dwelling in loss at Ganesh Himal Trading but we have learned how to be good at pivoting.

Since 1986, we have worked with a group of amazing women who create beautiful journals, bags and cards with handmade Nepali paper. Originally working for a project created by UNICEF,  their organization Bhaktapur Craft Printers (BCP) fell apart in 2014 when UNICEF outsourced their buying to another company and BCP lost 75% of their sales. As the managers of BCP left and with their expertise started their own paper companies it left behind a group of women who had for over 20 years created the products that BCP sold but who had never run a business. These women were in essence stranded without work. Because we knew them personally and because we believed in what they were achieving through their work, Ganesh Himal Trading stepped in to help them re-organize and provide them with continued work.  That was how Bhaktapur Women’s Craft Paper (BWCP) was born in 2015 (right before the earthquake!).

It has been such an interesting journey with these makers, many of whom are older women, as they have tried to understand how to create a business and take on all of the tasks of running a business while also making the products. They have done an amazing job and although it has not been easy on many levels they have continued to produce orders and receive income every 2 months for GHT since the dismantling of the UNICEF project of BCP. We have watched their children grow and go to school and even go to graduate school.

But as I stated in the first sentence, things don’t always work out and as much as we would have liked to see this group of women stay together as one business there were too many personal difficulties that arose. In July of 2020 the difficulties started to interfere with their work and so it was determined that the best way forward was to split the group and create a new company. This is how Creative Women Craft Paper (CWCP) was born.

Now Ganesh Himal works with both groups developing new products for CWCP and splitting the orders of the older products that they used to make together. Each group tried so hard to make it work out but sometimes that just doesn’t happen so instead of abandoning one group we got creative. Now each group is doing well and paper products are selling better than ever. Their lives are easier because they don’t have inner conflicts at work, each group is receiving good orders and we are developing different products so that the groups don’t compete with one another. So, this year we have introduced a new line of journals using the spectacular nature photographs of Nathan Peck. This is an entirely new look for Ganesh Himal and we hope you enjoy them. They are featured this month in a promotional sale because they are so indicative of the beauty of fall.

This story is just a reminder of how difficulties can be creatively solved and how Fair Trade is not always an easy path but if we keep each other’s well-being at the forefront we can move forward to positive futures together.

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