Amira El-Noshokaty meets women in the process of recreating their lives With the motto "Empowering communities", the Egypt Craft Centre in Zamalek -- now showcasing an impressive range of local female skill -- is soon to be registered as the first Fair Trade Organisation in Egypt (FTE) -- a non-profit organisation supporting disinherited artisans (over 90 per cent of whom are women) by, among other means, marketing over 500 handmade products of theirs and, more generally, promoting principles of fair trade as a cultural, social and environmental ideal. The craft centre, which promotes the work of 39 communities, has its origins in a mid-1990s Cooperation for Development of Emerging Countries (COSPE) project. An Italian non- profit organisation founded in 1983, COSPE is active in 30 countries; its principal mandate is to help vulnerable groups, including women, the young and local associations, generate income out of craft and food processing activities in a strictly fair- trade context. And it does so by channelling traditional crafts into international markets. "We were the first to provide the marketing link between producers of handicrafts and the local and international market," explains Maria Donata Rinaldi, COSPE project manager. "We also introduced the idea of fair trade in Egypt." The global fair trade movement -- conceived in relation to the north-south division -- operates as a trading partnership based on dialogue, transparency and mutual respect, contributing to sustainable development by improving trading conditions and securing the rights of marginalised producers and workers. Capacity building programmes combine with coaching on cost, pricing, management and marketing to deliver complete package to some 1,800 direct beneficiaries in Egypt -- the artisans themselves -- benefiting an additional 3,200 people . "Our mission," said Rinaldi, "is to preserve tradition on the one hand, and to make room for new ideas on the other." Judging by Egypt, at least, this is a mission COSPE seems to be living up to. According to the centre general manager Mona El-Sayed, indeed, the only remaining problem is that 90 per cent of the customers are foreigners to "bridge the cultural boundary", it is necessary to publicise the fact that 65 per cent of the money made goes directly to the artisans, while the remaining 35 per cent covers the showroom's running costs and packaging; in the case of export, indeed, since the cost is no more than 15 per cent, 85 per cent goes to the artisans, who are provided with fashion and quality control guidelines in the light of the latest market research. The Abu Gandar Centre for paper-making in Fayoum, for example, trains young women in the environmentally friendly manufacture of paper. Nada Eid has been on the project since it started two years ago. "It's easy to learn," she says, "and much fun." According to Rania Gaber, a project facilitator, the centre was instituted for mothers who had been driven out of school by economic need, to generate enough income for them to keep their daughters in school; yet it in the end appealed to the girls themselves. Taught by Faculty of Fine Arts professor Ahmed Refaat, a group of six use onions, Nile flowers, rice straw, hibiscus and spices to produce hand-crafted paper of immense appeal. "I just want to make something beautiful for our village," Azza Mahmoud, 17, supplied. "This is one of our latest projects," Rinaldi went on. "And it has a more powerful link with environmental conservation. Bearing in mind that the production of paper is an ancient Egyptian craft, it's a project that adds to the industry using all natural materials." It was on the occasion of the International Women's Day, on 8 March, that an exhibition at the Italian Cultural Centre in Cairo provided the opportunity to meet some of the centre's talents. Present was, among many others, Ragaa Saad, the young mother of three, who lives with her husband in Manshiet Nasser. Joining the Association for the Protection of the Environment, Saad eventually became involved with the centre. "I dropped out of school when I was 14 and joined the textile manufacturing, trade," she remembers. Through such work she not only saved up for her marriage but eventually resumed her education. After her husband had an accident that prevented him from working, she became the family's sole breadwinner. "At first he was against my working," she said. "I insisted. I've always felt I had to have my own money in my bag. Through the centre we've learned new ideas and the techniques to develop them -- to give buyers the variety they demand. I now manage quality control, I've trained 12 girls whom I initially paid by piece. Now the centre has an effective system whereby we are granted a steady market share, though; so each girl is paid an average of LE150 per order." For her part Sabah El-Abd, a middle- aged woman who has been weaving all her life at the Mottamadaya Women's Association in Imbaba, Cairo -- a skill she has passed onto her daughter, whose work was on show here -- believes fair trade will provide "a truly great opportunity". According to the 2005 Egypt Human Development Report, 2.2 per cent of the handicraft work force, which makes up 14 per cent of the total work force, is made of women, while the female unemployment rate, compared to a total rate of 9.9 per cent during 2004, is 24. According to Doaa Hussein, project and branch manager at the Institute of Cultural Affairs-Middle East and North Africa (ICA-MENA), handicrafts as a means to empowering women are part of a global civil society trend. "Development has acquired a multi-dimensional, more comprehensive scope," she says, stressing the holistic approach that emphasises environmentally friendly and asset-based work alongside the empowerment drive. Thus the women of Al-Namous village now use the orgoun, the stem out of which dates grow in a palm tree not only for sweeping -- its traditional function -- but to make bags, wallets, table mats and curtain, which generated jobs for 32 over two years. Nor is the project gender exclusive: it has engaged five tailors and three carpenters as well. And, connected as it remains to cultural heritage, as per the recommendations of the millennium development goals, the global trend of fair trade is an alternative and beneficial mode of globalisation. According to the 2005 United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) annual report, in developing countries globalisation has been associated with either centralised production or production through a long chain of suppliers -- neither of which provides workers with sufficient security or legal cover. Female access to formal employment, especially in the high-risk case of the woman being the principal household provider reduces the risk of poverty dramatically; the centre is one example of efforts to provide alternatives to the fast disappearing public sector in developing countries, which provided the majority of work opportunities for women. And as El-Sayed concluded, "volunteers, ideas, any positive response from the reader is welcome."
