How does Fair Trade affect communities?

How does Fair Trade affect communities?

Sam Bills (Manager) gives expert video advice on: How does Fair Trade encourage environmentally safe practices? and more...

In Fair Trade, there is a list of people waiting for consumers to buy more Fair Trade stuff, so that they can be part of the Fair Trade network. What happens is when one Fair Trade business starts in a community, other businesses are then able to grow around that. A great story that we tell here at Ten Thousand Villages is of one of the bamboo furniture producers that we buy from who started the bamboo furniture company and around that another business has grown, where someone who is locally supplying the bamboo and washing it and preparing for it to be made into furniture. Often the people who are walking to these places have enough money to be able to buy things like lunch, so businesses are springing up that provide lunch for these workers. Thus, when you have one business that is able to make it, there are so many businesses that can grow up around that. It really has an affect on the entie community.