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Founded/Organized: 1990 Type of organization: People’s Organization Products: Buri-Rattan furniture, baskets and home accessory items Workers:15-30 workers 50% female |
 People's Recovery, Empowerment and Development Assistance Foundation, Inc.
PREDA Fair Trade Assisted Project Pozzorubio is a large town
near the historic Manaoag Church in the province of Pangasinan. It is about five
hours by bus from Manila. This rural area is known for very hot dry summers. The
making of handicrafts, such as magazine racks, wine racks, baskets of various
shapes and designs is a thriving and important industry that supplements the
earnings of many low income farmers. The majority of the people in this area are
tenant farmers whose plight has not improved because the land reform programs
have failed. Common resources in the province include agricultural products such
as rice, corn, and some vegetable varieties. Mango production is also an
important industry.
The
manufacturing of buri-rattan baskets and household accessories for PREDA began
in 1980 when Marcel, a young worker, escaped from indentured labor at a sugar
growing hacienda in a nearby province. He had endured backbreaking labor in the
blistering heat of a sugar cane plantation with his brothers and sisters. The
owner immediately confiscated his small earnings in order to pay the debts of
Marcel and his family. Like many other families working on the plantation,
poverty had forced them to become indentured laborers in the sugar cane
industry. They lived in an open-sided shed in the middle of the sugar cane
fields. Tired and hungry Marcel applied for work at the PREDA center. He began
making baskets using the childhood skills taught to him by his father in his
home village. The
hacienda owner, fearing other bonded workers would escape, sent an official to
find and bring him back. PREDA intervened and promised to pay his debts. PREDA
found a customer who ordered a hundred baskets and his family set up a small
cottage industry in the shed in the cane fields. They were well paid for their
baskets and soon were paying off their debt and buying their way to freedom. The
hacienda owner was very angry with PREDA and the workers and tried to stop the
project. But PREDA provided aid to defend the rights of the workers. The
workers soon were able to work their way to freedom and were able to return to
their villages in Pozzorubio. Marcel and his wife returned to PREDA and began to
teach the skills of basket making to the villagers in a housing area set up by
PREDA after their waterfront village was demolished in 1982 by the Olongapo City
administration under mayor Richard Gordon. The
orders for baskets continued to come in and the cottage industry flourished.
PREDA then helped Miguel and his wife resettle in Pozzorubio and start their own
cottage industry with their family and friends there. Today
most of the production in Pozzorubio is home based. Twenty families are loosely
organized to work together. When the orders exceed their capacity, they share
the orders with other neighbors. Traditionally men are the ones who make the
skeletal structure of the baskets and the women weave the body of the baskets
with buri split. PREDA
Fair Trade assisted the group to structure itself as a government accredited
People’s Organization. In 2000, PREDA provided a 5-year low-interest loan for
the purchase of hand tractor. It also assisted the farmers to formulate a policy
concerning association use of the tractor. In addition, the farmers have
received financial assistance in the form of soft loans for rice production. If
their loans are paid in full and on time, 3% of the interest paid will be
returned to the capital build-up fund of their organization. Product
Description: Products
produced are environmentally friendly. No chemicals are used to treat the
materials (bamboo, rattan and buri). For example, to treat for termites, the
bamboo and rattan are soaked in salt water.
The frame is held together with glue and nails.
Tiny holes are drilled
around the edge of the frame where the spokes or ribs are inserted. The short
pencil like ribs are made of split bamboo. They are called spokes. These are
attached with glue. The ribbon strips of buri are then woven through the spokes
to make the finished product. The long ribbons of buri are made from the ribs of
the buri tree leaf. Buri is a type of palm tree that grows in abundance in the
countryside. The dried leaves are removed and used for other products such as
hats and fans. The hard rib is split with a sharp knife. The ribbon makes a
strong, flexible fiber material. Rattan
is commercially grown in the Philippines and is a renewable resource. The fast
growing bamboo is also widely available. THEIR PRODUCTS:
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