Help Ganesh Himal Trading Build a Weaving Workshop in Nepal!

Ganesh Himal has agreed to raise $2500 help rebuild ACP’s Bhagwati groups weaving workshop. We will donate $1250 and we invite you to help us raise the additional $1250. 100% of your donation will go to the building fund. Ganesh Himal has worked with this group since 1986.

Bhagwati Shrestha is a weaver for the Association of Craft Producers (ACP), a Fair Trade group in Kathmandu, Nepal. Like many girls in Nepal, Bhagwati was forced to leave school at a young age to help support her family. Fortunately she was able to get work with ACP, a women’s craft center established to provide low income & abandoned women with employment and training in traditional skills like weaving.

Bhagwati has worked hard at ACP and been elected by her co-workers to lead their weaving group. Through ACP she has learned the management skills necessary to effectively represent this group. She has risen to the challenge and since her promotion her weaving group has almost doubled in size. Now Bhagwati and the women in her group are earning a good living through ACP and have she has been able to finish school and begin college while also being the sole provider for her family.

In Bhagwati’s group the women chose to create their own communal workshop near their homes so they could easily work in their spare time, near their children. Their association with Fair Trade has allowed them to earn much needed income while gaining respect and power with in their families. They have also learned the value of their work which gives them much greater power in the marketplace.

Their current workshop is badly in need of upgrading! They don’t have the funds to rebuild it and so have asked us for our help. Please help us reach our goal! You can make a donation by logging onto our website and going to “Women’s Projects” in our store or you can simply send us a check with Bhagwati fund in the memo line. After you make your donation we would love for you to send us a picture of your store so that we can make a collage of all of the different people who have help out with this project!

*This could be a fun store project! Get creative or just paste the following message onto a jar and collect donations. Donate a percent of the items that Bhagwati’s group makes or even raffle off some of their items! Have fun with it and know that every penny raised will go to raising a new roof for them!* Poster

Bhagwati’s group makes all of our recycled silk placemats and runners, blockprint placemats and runners, rag rugs and block print floor mats.