Contact • Fairtrade • News   Your fair trade product   When you are shopping, do you stop to consider who made the object you are about to buy and who is benefiting most from the sale--the ‘middleman’ or the person that made the product? The term “fair trade” means that you are guaranteed that the people who create your jewelry have been paid a fair, living wage and are not being exploited. Hot Chili Concepts is a women’s cooperative formed in 2004 in a slum community right in the heart of Bangkok. The women now produce a wide range of quality products (jewelry, clothes and accessories, spa products and candles, boxes and bags) for small business owners. Most of the women involved in the project are principle income earners for their family and their wages go a long way in supporting their extended family members, too. This job gives her the flexibility required as a mother to work independently from home scheduling her work schedule around family obligations, to have time off if her children are ill. In April 2004, a fire destroyed the slum community that the women were living in, leaving 7,000 people homeless. While rebuilding is progressing, the process is slow. Only a handful of families live in permanent house; most still lives in tents. Hot Chili Concepts has rented a house in the area for the “fair trade” project and for some of the family’s residence. After losing everything in the fire, the financial pressure is even greater on all the families to makeends meet. AnnA Jewelry is proudly produced by Hot Chili Concepts. By buying my jewelry you are playing a vital role in helping these women fight poverty while giving them dignity and the chance at a brighter future for them, and their families. Anna van Dijk designs the jewelry line and creates the prototype samples, materials are carefully chosen to create the jewelry, and the Hot Chili Concepts project manager divides the work among the women. Anna oversees final quality control before sale and shipment to vendors. Please ask for additional lines made by the Hot Chili Concepts fair trade project. We welcome inquiries from your company about providing materials available in Bangkok or producing your specific designs by our “fair trade” project.