While volunteering in an isolated village in the jungle mountains of Panama, I met a group of women artisans. Since I had a background in marketing, I was asked to speak to them about their possibilities of selling their crafts. We explored the options. There is hardly a road and no money for transportation. Selling on the internet? Oh, but how will they ship when there is no mail? How will they receive money without a bank account? How will they get a bank account when the government has no record that they were ever born?
I came back from that meeting to my little room in the jungle, so frustrated that I couldn’t find a way for them to sell their exquisite crafts: undiscovered treasures lost in isolation. And then the idea exploded in my mind all at once. I could sell them. It is the business I always wanted, the one I’d tried to make happen before and couldn’t. It was the only way for them and the best way for me.
So the next day, I met with them again to discuss the concept of fair trade. To tell them that if a bag takes 2 months to make, they have to make sure they get 2 months’ salary from it. They said they would think about it and I said I would see what I could do about buying bags.
