Fair Trade Activities Report

UPDATES 2019

 

January 2019

implemented our new water filtration system with funding from our Indigogo campaign

We worked on putting together our WFTO related files, improved our organisational structure.

Invited Susan Caba for several outside training sessions

women’s training in basic life skills

leadership training with Sanjay

 

March 2019

leased new manufacturing location

developed new homewares collection, attended the Fair Trade Federation Conference, gave a presentation at the conference on our new water filtration system

 

April 2019

did a full build out for a new manufacturing unit, increased capacity, hired new staff, and set in motion new systems for manufacturing, quality control.  increased block printing unit capacity and added a fabric stock room

 

May 2019

prepared for WFTO audit

 

June 2019

completed our WFTO Audit

 

July 2019

developed our new Diwali collection garments, new Chinese Garden collection garments

 

August 2019

 

September 2019

improved our QC systems, work flow, added a new COO, developed our in-house brand more extensively, 

 

 

UPDATES 2020

January - February 2020

developed womens and homewares collection for launch in our in-house retail shop in Bani Park, did a photoshoot and campaign for the same.  Completed work on 4 new collections: baby, homewares, womens, nightwear. Became members of ethical wholesale platform - FAIRE.

 

March -June 2020

Closed and reduced all operations to essentially nil due to pandemic and lockdown conditions.  Paid living expenses to all employees.  Sent out regular updates to all customers on the situation and requested that no one cancel orders.  No customers cancelled.  Several customers paid advances to help us. 

 

May- July 2020

Reopened with limited capacity (about 20-25%) and started producing masks for export orders to the US which kept us solvent, continued to support staff who were unable to come to work.

 

August 2020

Shifted all production operations to Mansarovar, thereby significantly cutting operational costs, improving efficiency, quality control and gaining better production flow.  Temporarily closed our retail shop until the pandemic is over.

 

August -December 2020

Started returning to regular production orders with limited capacity.  Continued updating customers regularly on pandemic restrictions.

 

UPDATES 2021

January - March resumed mostly normal production, held discussion with management on best ways to mitigate rapidly increasing cost of raw materials and cost of living inflation.  Bought fabric in advance to help reduce future expenses.  Worked with customers to send partial shipments and find other creative solutions to rising costs, slow shipping, shipping delays. 

Worked extensively with other ethical business to find best practices to improve our margins, reduce costs

 

March 2021

worked with a professional videographer to create a video story of our printing and water filtration to raise funds for improvement of the same. Worked to increase sales on Faire wholesale platform.

 

April - June 2021

Faced renewed lockdowns and limited capacity which severely impact our production schedule and delayed all orders by about two months.

 

June 2021

Received a donation for improvement to our water filtration unit which we will implement after March 2022.

Made significant changes to production supervision resulting in better efficiency.

 

July-August 2021

Made several improvements to our production flow and organisation.  Participated as a featured supplier on Common Objective’s Expo July 2021 to attract new buyers.

 

September 2021

Shari visited, held AGM, met with all staff, gave salary increased for all to offset cost of living increases, discussed all employee concerns on every topic—production, health benefits, eduction, fair trade standards, etc. Reviewed printing unit, met with staff on same points.

 

October - December 2021

purchased additional cutting table, new press, worked to increase production capacity, outreach to customers