Thumbprint Fair Trade Gallery supports artisans from around the world. This support helps to provide sustainable employment, skill sets, and hope to people who if not for this role, would be living in poverty. Each purchase ‘makes a difference’! While we have many different tales to tell, here are a few stories of the hands that make our uniquely beautiful products.....
Kapula Candles & Ceramics
This family business trains their artisans to make wonderful handcrafted candles and ceramics. The business began to help employ the local women of the community, many of whom are single mothers. Today 90% of their employees are women who are trained to make these beautiful products, which in turn provides them with sustainable employment. Using traditional methods, these handcrafted candles and ceramics are hand poured and hand painted, making each piece a work of art! Kapula is a proud guaranteed member of the World Fair Trade Organization, WFTO.
Bin Minh Handmade Scarves
These silky soft, gorgeous scarves are made in a small collective in Northern Vietnam, just a few miles from the South China Sea. Binh Minh means morning sun in Vietnamease, and from the door of this workshop is a spectacular vantage point from which to welcome the sun each and every morning. It is here the collective of 20 families operates 25 looms and can weave up to 5,000 shawls and scarves a month. Binh Minh uses only local Vietnamese raised silk in all of its handspun yarns.
Godfrey’s Animals
Godfrey started his creative career 15 years ago making animals and cars out of coke cans. Originally from Zimbabwe, he now has a small team that work with him in his workshop located just outside Cape Town. Here he designs and makes a range of character animals out of recycled metal, tin, wire and beads – each screaming with personality!
Original t-bag designs
Starting with a few greeting cards, Original teabag Designs now incorporates their recycled, beautifully hand-painted tea bags into a variety of products. The tea bags are donated from around the world to make this possible. Once the bags are dried, the tea is removed, the paper is ironed and it becomes a canvas for the local ‘tea bag artists’! The company provides employment for many who live in the neighboring township, thus making it possible for them to provide for themselves and their families.
Silk Road Bazzaar
These products are made by a women-led women-run cooperative call Kork located in the mountainous villages across Kyrgyzstan. During peak season more then 100 women come together to make their famous 'zooties' - the whimsy little animal booties. Many of these women provide the primary source of income for their families which is unusual in this male dominated country. This fills them with pride and they are elevating the status of women in Kyrgyzstan!
