By Denise Attwood, CCF Chair

Recently I was contacted by my dear friend, Meera Bhatterai, director and founder of the Association for Craft Producers (ACP), regarding a truly perilous situation for over 1000 women artisans in Nepal. ACP is a Nepali non-profit, fair trade organization providing design, marketing, management, and technical services to low-income Nepali craft producers. Their focus is to not only employ women but to also provide fair wages and social benefit programs. It is this package that is helping their women producers thrive and transcend cultural barriers. The impact of ACP is extensive and has empowered 1000s of women across Nepal since their founding in 1984.

For these numerous women, working with ACP has meant:

• Gaining control of the money they earn for the first time in their lives. This control has earned them greater respect and given them greater decision making power in their families and communities helping them break the constraints of a patriarchal society,

• Being able to send their children, especially daughters, to school. Most producers at ACP were denied education as children due to poverty and cultural constraints. Now, financially stable and with assistance from ACP & CCF through the Power of 5 & Joy Attwood Scholarship, many are able to send their children, especially daughters to school and even on to college, breaking down the cycle of generational poverty,

• Being able to work in healthy, clean spaces. Working conditions in Nepal are often poor, lacking proper ventilation, with leaking roofs and rough mud floors. Projects led by ACP have changed workshops into healthier, cleaner spaces. These changes have affected the health, productivity and morale of ACP’s producers and has given them a greater sense of self respect.  

• Being able to do things many of us take for granted like visiting a doctor, learning about their constitutional rights or having their own bank account.  ACP prides itself on providing these benefits and more to all producers.  For these Nepali families, access to medical stipends, health and dental camps, interest bearing savings accounts, and retirement, is life changing.

ACP is a founding member of the Fair Trade Group Nepal and a long-time member of the World Fair Trade Organization. They are a Fair Trade success story. I have been working alongside Meera and ACP since 1986 as a fair trade business owner. Our relationship has strengthened over the years, enduring civil war, natural disasters, and economic insecurity. Throughout all of this, ACP and my business, Ganesh Himal Trading, have always attempted to ensure our efforts go beyond business to benefit everyone involved, in every aspect of their life. It was largely these efforts that led to the formation of CCF in 2014.

It is because of this long standing relationship that ACP is one of CCF’s greatest partners in Nepal. 

• CCF partners directly with ACP to keep over 100 children (with an emphasis on girls) in school each year through the Power of 5 program.  It was through their recommendation that CCF has been working towards creating an endowment for the program that will ensure access to primary level education for producers’ children for generations to come. 

• CCF partners with ACP to provide the Joy Attwood College Scholarship—giving three girls who have need, ability and desire, a means to continue their education into the 11th and 12th class. 

• CCF partners with ACP to employ the Girls’ Education Program Administrator who oversees the administrative and reporting requirements of these programs while also serving as a mentor and counselor for the recipients.   

• CCF partnered with ACP after the 2015 earthquakes to ensure women were able to begin earning consistent incomes as quickly as possible to help with recovery.  This partnership led to the rebuilding of the Kirtipur weaving workshop. 

Now, however, with the lockdown due to Covid-19 and the subsequent loss of sales, ACP’s situation is dire and they have reached out for help. There is no PPP loan in Nepal nor are there government resources for those who have lost their employment. ACP’s expenses for salaries and benefits alone, comes to $33,000/month so you can see that they will need a lot to cover the producers’ wages in the coming months. With sales at 40% less than previous years and orders to make they need capital to survive while they learn how to adapt.

In early July, CCF was thrilled to be able to provide a $25,000 grant for ACP’s operating expenses but they need much more than that and so we are looking to raise at least $25,000 more on their behalf. Because CCF is an all-volunteer run non-profit with grants to cover bank and administrative fees, we can ensure that 100% of your donations for this incredible organization will go directly to ACP. My husband, Ric, and I will personally match the first $2500 of donations made to assist ACP.

As Meera so aptly states in her letter:

ACP has been self-reliant since our establishment in 1984, as a Not-for-Profit social enterprise, ACP had become self-sufficient from the 4th year…it has been 30 years since ACP has relied on its own income source for day-to-day operations. In 2015 after the devastating earthquake, we had a very fragile financial situation and we sought donor support to meet our operational expenses. We once again face a difficult situation. We are in dire need of working capital to tide over the present grave crisis imposed upon us by the pandemic. Sadly nothing significant has been announced by the government which would benefit MSMEs and SMEs like us. We are trying to locate funding support for our operational cost for the next 6 months, amounting to NRs. 30,000,000 (USD 260,000). You have always believed in our work and supported us in time of crisis. We once again seek your support…We thank you for your continued support and looking forward to your response.

Take care and stay safe.

Warm regards,

Meera

CCF believes that when women and girls thrive, the world is better off. Our mission is to support women and girls in Nepal becoming key participants in healthy societies, partners like ACP allow this work to happen. ACP is an amazing group, with a long history of bringing income and resources directly to women, they cannot fail and we hope you can help them in this time of need in any amount possible.