Chrochet Artisans
We call this collection Ami which comes from Amigurumi (編みぐるみ), a Japanese word that literally means "crochet or knitted stuffed toy". It is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals or creatures, like these beautiful ones made in Bangladesh!
The producers of our beautiful crochet toys are located in Saidpur, in the North East of Bangladesh. The project was set up to support Bahari families, an ethnic group that had been relocated twice - once during the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947 and again when Bangladesh became independent in 1971.
The villages had very little work and through the inception of a production unit in 2005, a group of artisans were able to gain income through crochet work. Through product development support, this group is creating exportable products for children in Australia and beyond.
The Fair Trade group have permanent and seasonal workers which now number almost 100. Artisans now have security with regular earnings and this contributes to their family income.
We connected with this producer group through our network of Fair Trade colleagues including our friends who are members of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO). We have made several visits to our artsians to take a look at their workplace, meet the workers to discuss product development and to discuss arrangements with management.
We have been working with their umbrella organization for about 12 years. We did a follow up visit in 2020 to work on product development and to visit new producer groups.
The finished products are trucked up to a distribution office in Dhaka, packed in a shipping container, then transported by the high seas to the port of Fremantle. The container is then delivered to our warehouse in Morley, Perth, Western Australia.
Interesting fact: Bangladesh has the 10th largest population in the World - 163 million in 2019.
Interesting fact: The Bengal Delta covers a large area of the Bengal Basin, which occupies about 35% of the total area of Bangladesh.
