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Paper Stems the tide of migrant labour

 Earlier this year staff members Allison Barret and Richard Dollimore visited various producer organizations in the Philippines. Allison Barret reports on one of the new members of the Shared interest clearing house, Salay Handmade paper.

 In the Philippines many of the businesses linvolved in fair trade were started by dynamic women. Some of them became involved through political campaigning. Others have simply seen the plight of the villagers where they live and have found a way to improve their lives.

One such is Loreta RasifiLira, the wife of the doctor in the village of Salay, near Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao.       

Loreta told us "There was no work for people in the village or even in Cagayan and many were having to leave Mindanao to find work. Here in the Philippines we have a huge category of people called OFWs - overseas Filipino workers, who live and work most of the year abroad to bring some income back to their families."

To respond to the tide of people leaving the area Loreta started Salay Handmade Paper 16 years ago. Using a room in her house as a workshop, she and 10 other women learned to make paper, and, using pressed flowers, cards to sell. Now they have a large paper factory with 350 workers organised into a co-operative and 157 women 'designers' who make cards and other paper products using pressed flowers. Each designer has a 'cluster group' of women who work together in their homes, so altogether a large part of the village is now involved in the enterprise. As you walk around, one lovely effect of this booming industry in the village is that in every space between and around houses, flowers have been planted.

Loreta's son Neil now looks after the business and Loreta concentrates her efforts not only on the work of their Foundation which raises funds to help children through school, but also on extending the market for handicrafts in the whole northern Mindanao region. Tourists no longer come to Mindanao, and the recent bomb in Davao has put the seal on any hopes that they might in the near future, and so the export market is vital.

 "We are relying on fair trade to support us through this difficult time, not only because they are committed to carry on trading with us but they are also helping LIS to go Out to trade fairs to meet commercial buyers who will not come here. I am trying to help other artisans in the reason by incorporating some of their products in our designs and getting, them into the market that way."

 Sinamay

Loreta took us to meet a group of women she is involved with in this way. Jenni Abendano from a nearby village started weaving with sinamay, a course fibre, eight years ago and now has formed an association of 45 women. They started with 300 pesos and now have 200,000 pesos in the bank, and enough work to allow the women to make a reasonable, if not constant, living. Lorta has incorporated some of their sinamay weaving into lampshades she is making for fair trade orders and this is helping the association to have more work for their members.

Salay Handmade Paper has now joined the Shared Interest clearing house despite Loreta's reluctance to borrow money (the business has never taken out a loan). This reluctance is sensible given bank rates of as much as 27% in the Philippines. With Shared Interest's help to ease cash flow, and the possibility of a term loan, Loreta is hopeful that the new office they are building next to their paper factory will soon be finished and ready for business.

Shared interest: Quarterly Return (Newsletter of Shared Interest Society Limited) 

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