These bags have been designed and produced in cooperation with the Fabrics For Freedom (FFF) foundation, which works to promote the use of ecological fabrics from fair trade and to contribute to sustainability and care for the environment.
For this project, FFF collaborates with the Navdanya foundation, headed by Vandana Shiva, who has received worldwide recognition as an activist in defence of farming communities in India, and who is in favour of cultivating organic crops and creating seed banks.
These bags are made with organic cotton from Vidarbha, one of the most important cotton regions in India.
The project helps families in Vidarbha so that they can change transgenic cotton cultivation for organic cotton, encouraging the creation and maintenance of seed banks and helping the commercialisation of such cotton at a fair price.
Organic cotton arrives as fabric through the Indian knitting factory Assissi Garments, committed to groups at risk of social exclusion.
With this organic cotton from India, the bags are manufactured in Spain and, for each bag sold, FFF donates 1€ to Vandana Shiva’s campaign to create seed banks.
The whole process -selecting the seeds, planting and growing them, dyeing the fabrics, sewing the bags- is ecological from beginning to end, and follows social, environmental and economic Fairtrade principles.
NAVDANYA PROJECT
Navdanya is a non-governmental organisation founded, among others, by Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist, physicist, and author who works to defend farming communities in India.
FFF supports the Navdanya foundation in providing a dignified and sustainable livelihood for rural communities of Vidarbha, by means of the cultivation of organic cotton.
With profits from selling cotton used in the making of these bags, the Navdanya foundation helps farmers in the region to:
- create community seed banks,
- invest in continuous formation in ecological farming methods,
- support the process of organic certification,
- facilitate the access to international markets in the best conditions.
ASSISI PROJECT
The Indian knitting factory Assisi Garment, located in Tirupur (India), endeavours to help women at risk of social exclusion by giving them a job, formation, board and lodging. The profits Assisi makes are reinvested in social projects such as an old people’s home, an orphanage, a nursing school for destitute people or a hospital.
WHEN YOU BUY THIS BAG, YOU KNOW THAT:
- - Farmers in Vidarbha (central India) were paid a fair price for their cotton.
- - Seed banks were created, which Navdaya farmers can use to grow different crops.
- - Organic cotton certification costs were paid.
- - It was made by an NGO, Assisi Garments, which employs women at risk of social exclusion.
- - You help the Fabrics For Freedom foundation continue its mission and goals.
- - You take part in the transformation of the textile world towards a model which is fairer to people and nature.
