Young Communicators of La Oroya

by Nelson Figueroa, journalist of Dia del Pueblo

The population of La Oroya lives in constant contamination and there are few independent radio stations that express an alternative opinion about the environment, since big business runs the show.

The Young Communicators Project is the response of the Joining Hands network Peru (Día del Pueblo) to the need to make the voice of the people who live in La Oroya heard over the airwaves.

To awaken the concern of people on being vigilant and to generate other sources of opinion on mining and metallurgical activities, and on contamination of the air and water, the network plans on training two teams of youth communicators on human rights and the environment. It hopes to establish a radio communication system by renting spaces at local radio stations for youth leadership and local participation, and build a future network of youth communicators on the environment on the region of Junín.

JH Peru will determine who the trusted local actors are and form agreements for youth participation in the work of communication in the city of La Oroya and the region of Junín. The network will build communication teams based on the active participation of Youth in local institutions and train two groups of 15-20 youth on radio production and the environment. It needs to rent two spaces for radio production where youth will motivate, sensitize, and generate alternative opinions on the mining and metallurgical activity. A system of interconnection, a Network, will be established between various communicators to have permanent feedback the website manosperu.org will provide space to share new information about news and activities of the group.

Using the media, the network is planning three workshops in two different regions on educational radio with presentations as well as practice of techniques. Two retreats for local communicators in each region will affirm the youth's talents and help them learn more about communication. Between May an December programs will be proadcasted on La Oroya Sunday Morning Radio from 10a.m. – 12 p.m. with as program titles:

- Talking to make a happy family

- Saving the environment

- The nail in your shoe (opinion show by locals who can talk about their themes of social concern)

- The Ring Ring show (news, oddities, greetings and announcments to the population).

In addition, Junín Sunday Morning Radio will in the same period broadcast from 12-2 p.m. the program "Connect With More Energy Dude”, to provide the public with up to date information of critical analysis on the environment.

Prime Minister to Religious Leaders: "Transnational corporations should comply with the same standards as their country of origin"

by Jacob Goad, PCUSA volunteer and Participant of the Religious Delegation Visit

On 19 December 2007, a religious delegation was received by the Congress of Peru, and later by Peru's Prime Minister, Jorge del Castillo Galvez, who spoke with delegates for more than two hours about environmental issues related to mining and metallurgical operations in Peru.

The religious leaders requested a meeting with the Prime Minister to address the government's ethical responsibility to regulate business operations in order to protect the health of citizens and the environment in La Oroya, Peru, one of the ten most polluted places on earth according to the Blacksmith Institute of New York. The delegation emphasized it was not opposed to business growth, provided that business operations adopt policies of environmental sustainability.

The goals of the religious leaders were: 1. To ask that the Peruvian government to assume an ethical policy stance given the environmental and health crisis in the State of Junín, especially given the devastation in La Oroya. 2. To highlight the double standard of the operations of Doe Run, a New York-owned company that made decisions to clean up operations in St. Louis, Missouri but, according to studies produced by the Environmental Health Organization of Peru's government, has failed to do so in La Oroya.

Prime Minister del Castillo received the delegation favorably. When asked about environmental double standards of the Renco Group, the New York owner of Doe Run, the Prime Minister said that transnational corporations should comply with the same standards as their country of origin.

The delegation also received the support from the Congressional Committee on Ecology and the Environmental. Congresswoman Hilaria Supa Huamán from Cusco Peru said in her native tongue, Quechua, "We value that you have decided to put life above money today. The government and business should make plans to remedy these environmental problems and also to evaluate the cultural impact this is having."

Eating Fish with Your Fingers

by Bob Thornberry, PJT Board Member

Four members of Giddings-Lovejoy, Muriel and Gary Stephens, Andrew Loth, and Bob Thornberry, visited with their traveling companions Joining Hands artisan partners in Huayanay, Peru in January. It was an Andean experience they won't forget.

It began early on the morning of the 22nd. Leaving Hauncavelica by hired car, they traveled through a mountain landscape of sweeping panoramas and switchbacks, up and down. The trip was at an altitude of grazing llamas and alpacas and brisk air, and they were dressed for the occasion and the cold rainy season.

Walking into the village, they were greeted by a Peruvian weaver who led them to a family compound. The one-room work space held two large looms on which the men weave blankets, shawls, ruanas, and scarves.

Several years ago, another gringo took a turn at turning their lives around. Ruth Farrell had met the weavers in a Hauncavelica market and invited them to become members of Bridge of Hope, a Fair Trade Corridor that had been opened between JH Peru and their partners of Giddings Lovejoy. Then a PCUSA mission co-worker in Peru, Ruth worked alongside Jorge Travezano, the Coordinator, educating Peruvians and Giddings-Lovejoy folks about Trade Justice issues. To be better compatible, Jorge and Ruth advised the weavers to switch from alpaca wool to cotton and developed with them a Fair Trade line of attractive high quality artisan products.*

The Giddings-Lovejoy travelers met the master weaver and others that morning, including a new generation of young men perpetuating the culture of their mountain village. A younger generation hanging onto the leg of her father was also present.

The moment of solidarity was about to end when the base of table and its top suddenly appeared and placed between the looms. Tin plates of fried trout and boiled potatoes were then handed out to the guests, and they were left alone to dine with Christ that morning on the Galilean shore. They ate with their hands and handled the potatoes as apples. It was delicious!

The trip before and after followed a schedule the trip coordinators had devised with other artisan visits, a stop for conversation in La Oroya, and a Joining Hands Peru assembly meeting. There were more moments of solidarity, of friendship initiated or renewed, but the encounter with Christ among the Huayanay weavers will always be a story of eating fish without utensils.

*In the following years, the JH Peru Fair trade Project "Bridges of Hope" has grown into "Partners for Just Trade", a non-profit working in trade education and selling Fair Trade products. You can see and buy their products on their web page: www.partnersforjusttrade.org !

From January 22 - February 22 Partners for Just Trade organized a visit to Peru to work with partner artisans. Below you can read about the experiences.

Partners for Just Trade

by Carrie Hawthorne, Director of Partners for Just Trade

Saturday evening I returned from Peru after more than 4 weeks working with Bridge of Hope. I feel really good about the trip and it helped me realize that there were a lot of things that I assumed I knew about Bridge of Hope that I didn’t, and the trip really functioned as it was supposed to: to strengthen relationship of Partners for Just Trade with Bridge of Hope and the Peruvian artisans.

Making connections

Besides a few eye-opening observations, there were so many wonderful, positive things that I saw and experienced. I spent at least half a day with most artisan groups and developed a strong relationship with BOH staff Maribel and Jorge – we worked very well together and had a lot of fun. I came back with new products from many groups and really understand now how to communicate with BOH and directly with the weavers. Most of them have email, so we can start sending designs directly to the artisans which cuts down on work that BOH has to do as intermediary. We will have various new products for the spring and summer and new colors and designs for winter wear. The artisans now clearly understand who PJT is and what our role is. And they realize why altogether we have to increase the prices of their products.

Traditional gourd making by the Llamcay Tuki group of five men ages 16 to 42 years.

Bridge of Hope

Before I go into detail about the trip, I think it helps to understand how Bridge of Hope (BOH) is set up. BOH has two employees working in the Joining Hands office: Maribel Inga and Jorge Travezaño. Jorge oversees the entire project and is also active in representing BOH at Fair Trade activities in Peru. Maribel is primarily in charge of exports and finances for the store in Lima. BOH has a small store inside of a hotel in Lima and they have two young women who work at the store about four hours a day. Then BOH had (will get to why it is past tense below) two employees called “promoters”, who were supposed to work with the artisan groups on pricing, design, Fair Trade principles, etc – one with groups in Lima and the other with groups in Huancayo and Huancavelica. BOH is a project of JH Peru but has its own budget and pays half of JH’s rent and phone bill.

Underpriced products

One of the initial surprises I felt when I began visiting artisans (especially newer groups) was their lack of understanding of how to properly price products. After breaking down their pricing, I began to realize that the majority of groups were way under-pricing their products and in many cases, not even making the minimum hourly wage. When I began to question how this was possible (being that it is a fundamental part of Fair Trade) I began to realize several things.

Many artisans are under-pricing their products, not even making the minimum hourly wage.

Failing accompaniment

When BOH begins working with groups, they give eight different business- and design trainings that include pricing. The first realization that hit me was that not all of the artisans had come to understand the content of the trainings (although there definitely are some artisan groups who did get it!). A lot of the understanding actually occurs in practice and the job of the promoters was to do the practical application with the groups until the groups were doing it themselves. In some cases, however, the promoter did not follow the criteria that BOH had developed for the identification of groups and made improper selections, i.e. artisans in a group were all part of one family or artisans were not financially challenged.

In short, because artisans weren’t getting the practical training and accompaniment in their development many of the things that we had all assumed were happening – the basic tenets of Fair Trade – were NOT.

Artisans as promoters

After our visit to Huancayo and Huancavelica, Jorge, Maribel, Conrado (the director of JH Peru) and I decided to develop a new and exciting job position that will enable an artisan to replace the promoters. This is an extremely innovative move for BOH to make because it will be a huge advancement for the artisans that BOH will hire to take on these roles, one for each city. Five years ago, these artisans would have probably never dreamed of having such esteemed, advanced work. Now, BOH will train them in many areas and give them a salary, a demonstration of the social and economic development occurring in the BOH Fair Trade project.

In an innovative move, Bridge of Hope will hire one artisan for each city to serve as promoter, and to work with the groups on pricing, design, Fair Trade principles, etc.

A new pricing tool

But back to pricing…what made me most upset about the under-pricing was that PJT could be selling the products for much more. For example, the members of Emady expressed to me that they were not making enough on the pig backpack. We only sell it for $15 or $18 (I’ve been away from our prices for too long!) when we could really sell it for at least $25. Or the maracas, we sell for $3 (!!) and we could sell them for at least $5 to $10.

So I developed an excel spreadsheet that is a broken down formula of how to figure out:

• the cost per item of each material that goes into the product,
• plus the cost of labor
• plus 5% for other costs,
• plus 3% for their taxes,
• and a final 10% added to be used for investing in their own group.

This means that Jorge and the new artisan trainers will need to double-check the math time and again with the groups. It may sound easy but it will take doing this formula over and over with the groups until every artisan knows how to price!

Devaluation of $$

So, we know that future prices will pay fairly and include a percentage for investment. At the same time, the dollar has devalued by nearly 20% in the last several years, which means the payment we send in dollars is worth less in soles. The good news is that we have space for our prices to increase because they are so reasonably priced now. Some of our regular customers will notice this increase but we are acquiring new Partnership Box groups and online customers who will not notice the change.

I have the feeling it might be difficult for our stores to handle the price increases but I plan on writing them a letter in the coming month explaining to them about the reason why our prices will be increasing. Considering that nearly all of our stores are Fair Trade stores, I feel that they should accept the price increases once they understand that it is only due to the price raises for the artisans and the devaluation of the dollar. Besides, the last time BOH increased prices was 3 – 4 years ago!

Cost of materials, fair earnings on labor, a 10% investment toward the artisan group and miscellaneous costs like taxes and rent as well as the devaluation of the dollar, will all need to be taken into account to determine a more reasonable price,

Differentiating training needs

In order to improve the work BOH does with artisans, we also developed three different levels for artisan groups: beginner, intermediate and advanced. For each of these groups we developed areas for capacity building. Beginner groups will focus on Fair Trade principles, pricing, design basics, efficient work styles, etc., while advanced groups will work on making connections with other clients, learning how to export and become players in the Peruvian Fair Trade movement, etc. I believe that these levels will help the promoters hone in on the areas that the groups need the most work on.

Ongoing design development

As I repeatedly mentioned in my blog, design design design is a major area of concern. To continue to be competitive and continue to grow, each group needs at least one new product a year. This is a very difficult area for most of the groups. The only group that really has the ability to come up with trendy, fashionable designs is Emady. We have discussed having the new promoters take design classes to help the groups with design ideas.

I also would like to fund a summer intern to live in Peru and spend 3 weeks or a month in each city and work at length with each group on design. I believe that the cost would be well worth the money. But it might be challenging to find a design student who is interested in working for a non-brand name non-profit organization in a developing country and who speaks Spanish as well. But if we post it soon I think we might increase our chances of finding someone for the position. The design intern would be supervised by both Jorge and me (I would be sending specific products that the design intern would work on.) BOH will also have 2 Spanish volunteers for a month this summer who will hopefully be able to work on design. This will be an ongoing challenge for BOH.

New fund development

Another challenge for BOH will begin at the end of this year when their grant from Presbyterian Women runs out. Jorge has applied to I believe two grants but it is quite a challenge for them to search for grants – a lot is in English and there are so many other things they need to focus on.

My blog

I received a lot of positive feedback on the blog I wrote during the trip from several of our retail store partners (Sally Keller in Logan, UT told me she was dreaming of gourds and artichokes and sharing the blog with all of her volunteers), customers, and Fair Trade organizations.

This was an extremely valuable and beneficial trip and I feel confident that while we have a lot of challenging work ahead of us, we will succeed – and we must!