wfn.org | Global Marketplace features handcrafted items from around the world

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Note #7288 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

19-June-2002
GA02079

Global Marketplace features handcrafted items from around the world

Vendors discover consumer preferences

by Mary Julia Pace

COLUMBUS, OH-Beneath the "Enough for Everyone Global Marketplace" banner in the exhibit hall of the 214th General Assembly, Patty Nussle has discovered that hand-woven pastoral stoles sell better than placemats. 

She'll take this market research with her next month when she travels to Peru on a mission trip to help local weavers create products that appeal to American consumers.

Nussle and 21 others from Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus will join Presbyterian mission co-workers, Hunter and Ruth Farrell, in Lima, Peru for two weeks to work with artisans and others in the region that face high unemployment and poverty.

Back home at the General Assembly, it's the tote bags and coasters in cobalt blue, bright fuchsia and multicolored patterns that are attracting the attention of shoppers in the booth of Peruvian textile products. They are joined in the marketplace with thousands of other handcrafted items from around the world - drums, food, jewelry, pottery, kites and more.

It's all part of the ongoing Enough for Everyone program, a partnership ministry of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, the Presbyterian Peacemaking program, the Social Justice Program Area, the Women's Ministries Program Area, and Presbyterian Women. 

The program focuses on four projects that give congregations a way to look at and then respond to issues of fair trade, sweatshops, energy conservation and economically stressed communities. 

"We wanted to use the General Assembly to give these artisans more exposure, to help them to become more self-sufficient so they can have a just income," said Melanie Hardison, program coordinator.

Building on the success of the SERRV booth at past General Assemblies, Enough for Everyone expanded this year's marketplace to showcase an additional 12 artisans. SERRV, an alternative trade and development organization, remains as the centerpiece to the marketplace and is providing a centralized checkout system so that shoppers can pay for all of their purchases in one location.

There's also an educational component. Vendors share stories of the people who make the products and their need for economic development with shoppers as they browse the tables. 

"As we shop, we should do that in a way that supports people. We should think about how much money goes to the people that produced what we buy," said Hardison.

Through the Presbyterian Coffee project - one of the four Enough for Everyone projects  - congregations buy coffee from a trade organization that helps farmers in Latin America, Africa and Asia to earn a fairer share of income and gain access to credit and technical support.

Other Enough for Everyone projects focus on energy efficiency as a stewardship ministry; alternatives to the production of T-shirts in sweatshops, and providing financial assistance to low-income communities.

To learn more about the Enough for Everyone program, visit www.pcusa.org/enough or call 1-888-728-7228, ext. 5626; email:  enough@ctr.pcusa.org. 
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