Global Baskets LLC

GLOBAL BASKETS ORIGIN IN GHANA

 

Attributes of Fair Trade:

Northern Ghanaians are known for their traditional craft markets and weaving of beautiful baskets.

Not all markets are certified as Fair Trade.  But most markets are created to help women earn a fair market income from their labor.

For Global Baskets, an age­-old system was negotiated through the village elder women known as ‘The Mother’.    She alone is responsible for setting the fair wage for all.  She ensures every woman receives equal share of income, creates opportunities and manages the social relationships in families as she acts as the village banker holding all the wages.  When the women have a monetary need for anything from seeds, food, and fabric and so on, they are given money without question.  This is done to prevent domestic violence.  In many cases the husband may take his wife’s earnings and spend it on bad habits and less than noble interests.   The elder ‘mother’ protects the cultural identity of the man, ensures women are treated fairly at home and in the market. 

GLOBAL BASKETS ORIGIN IN USA

Serendipity and the failure of the USA to join the Kyoto Treaty in December 1997 provided the destiny of Global Baskets. Outraged Mayor Greg Nichols of Seattle Washington, challenged all the mayors across the USA in March of 2005 to conform to the concepts of the treaty calling for a Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. As the concept swept across the plains of America gathering mayors from city to city, commitments were proclaimed. (As of 2010, there are 1016 mayors who have joined). As chance had its way, founder Susan Hartsfield was in the audience in 2005 when Mayor Moyer of Annapolis Maryland announced to the Sierra Club she would sign the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

The Sierra Club wanted to thank the Mayor, so Susan as an active member prepared a basket of environment gadgets and gifts including a seedling tree for the mayor. The clever basket received just enough acknowledgements to inspire Susan to prepare 15 more baskets for all the neighbors on her street. Her thoughts were’ if the United Nations can come together to protect our climate and the cities across the USA can come together in parallel then surely I can do something on my own street’. Little red-wagon packed with similar baskets she set out to deliver and promote energy conservation.

But then something even stranger happened. Bewildered neighbors were perplexed by this unusual and unwarranted gift. Many saw no relationship between items, comments were made about the lack of edible items, some refused to answer the door and those that did were curious asking a plethora of questions. At that point Susan realized a brochure was necessary to explain the environmental impact of each product in the basket. It only took one try to realize there was too much information for a brochure.

Almost simultaneously a friend who had been providing a community education program in Ghana West Africa suggested placing the products in Ghana baskets and writing a book to explain it all. Susan had been using a Ghana basket as her kitchen recycling receptacle because the beautiful basket was so easy to wash and reshape. The basket itself would be an important part of the package reminding people to collect their recyclable products while in the kitchen. .

Baskets were ordered from a village in Northern Ghana and required four months to reach the USA. The book was written and self-published locally in Baltimore using recycled paper and soy ink. Since that time, all the environmental products offered by Global Baskets have been tried and discarded or added as a smart solution to the pollution.