KartiMarket News Blog

In February 2008 I was fortunate enough to visit two of our fair trade suppliers in Indonesia: Mitra Bali and Lombok Pottery Centre.

Mitra Bali is located just outside Ubud, central Bali, the cultural and artistic heart of this beautiful island. It’s a great town to wander in and out of craft stores and galleries, absorb the unique sights and smells of the streets and eat the wonderful foods (I recommend the suckling pig at Ibu Oka’s warung, or for vegetarians head to Bumbu Bali and grab yourself a vegetarian nasi campur.)

I was kindly picked up from my guesthouse by our friends from Mitra Bali and driven the 15 minute journey past rice fields to their headquarters. I was given a very welcoming greeting from Directors, Agung Alit and Hani Durasa, real pioneers of fair trade in Indonesia. We discussed our shared passion in design and fair trade over a strong Balinese coffee and I was given a tour of the lovely Mitra Bali premises which felt wonderfully secluded from the hustle and bustle that you so often encounter in this populous nation. After taking a look at many of the great crafts and products available at Mitra Bali and saying farewell to the friendly staff, I was dropped back in central Ubud for the next step of my journey.

Upon arriving on the island of Lombok I headed to Mataram, the capital. In sweltering afternoon heat I crammed myself and my backpack into a local bemo (mini bus) and went to the Lombok Pottery Centre (LPC). Interestingly, the bemo driver, upon learning of my required destination, wanted me to visit his friend’s shop instead where he assured me I could get cheaper pottery. Thinking I would be impressed, he informed me that his friend gets the pottery from villagers at very low prices - I quickly learnt that there is still plenty of work to be done in ensuring a fairer go for so many craftspeople in Lombok, making LPC’s work so much more important.

Novi and Ayu were there to assist me and explain the work that LPC does to give local craftswomen and their families opportunities for forging a better living. Lombok pottery really strikes a beautiful balance between rustic and refined, and the large warehouse at LPC was fantastic to wander around in to view these products.

I remember visiting LPC way back when I was a child on my first backpacking adventure with my father. Back then it was a fledgling organisation with some very admirable aims. Some 18 years later it was great to see a slickly run organisation that is helping promote the craft that is so unique to this island.

In future we hope to visit more current and potential suppliers to see first hand the work they do to contribute to their communities. It’s so important to put faces to names and see the passion so many people have for fair trade and the people it helps.

For more information on Mitra Bali and Lombok Pottery Centre please have a look at our pages on these two organisations and the products of theirs that we sell.

Chris

KartiMarket is pleased to announce that it is now a member of Shared Interest, a UK-based co-operative lending society that provides fair and just financial services to disadvantaged communities to enable them to trade their way out of poverty.

Shared Interest’s mission is in line with KartiMarket’s own mission to aid the development of disadvantaged groups, and their activities play an essential part in fair trade’s overall role by providing financial services to producers in developing countries, enabling them to buy raw materials, tools and other necessities in a timely manner.  These producers in most cases do not have access to mainstream financial services in their own countries - and the current financial crisis means that these producers are now finding it almost impossible to access lines of credit.

This goes hand in hand with KartiMarket’s role as buyer and retailer - utilising credit producers are able to satisfy orders from companies like ourselves who in turn are able to offer these products to final customers whose demand then creates larger orders for suppliers (increasing income for producer families), and again, the need for credit. In fact Shared Interest has assisted some of KartiMarket’s suppliers such as Camari in Ecuador and Mitra Bali in Indonesia, and the fruits of this virtuous cycle can be seen in our online store!

To become a member of Shared Interest, KartiMarket has deposited funds with Shared Interest, pooling funds with other members that will be used to provide the financial services to producers, and we will continue to contribute more funds as our business continues to grow.

Jaya