Jewelry Making and Ethics
Fair trade and other ethical jewelry practices are now a hot button issues in the jewelry industry in general, and I thought this article written by Marc Choyt for Modern Jeweler magazine entitle, "Fair Jewelry: Making a Difference from Mine to Market," might be of interest to some of my readers here. In it, he discusses his experience at the Madison Dialogue Ethical Jewelry Summit at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. held this past October.
Granted, most of us are pretty small time compared to some of the companies and designers mentioned in the article; however, I think it is still important for us to know what's going on in the trade areas of the industry and perhaps become part of the conversation if possible since this is where many of our jewelry components come from. It is also nice to know that many jewelers are trying to make a difference.
Comments
I looked briefly at this article. For some time now I have been thinking of not buying beads from China for various reasons but wondering how I can do it. Please keep us informed of ways we can buy beads from small scale mining groups. Perhaps there is some way to form an association that would allow us to buy in bulk and then distribute our purchases in order to keep our costs down. What do you think?
I wrote the article referenced above. Many of the people involved in this at the present time are small manufactures, such as myself. There are committees involved with setting fair trade standards for colored stones, diamonds, mining and refining. I am one of the chairs of a committee that will determine fair trade standards for international manufacturing.
Your voice as a small designer is welcome and needed in any of these committees. You can make a difference.
We need to vision a time when the poor small scale artisanal miners, the 100 million of them around the world, will
benefit from fair trade practices.
If you want more information, feel free to contact me at reflective@cybermesa.com or see my blog where I cover these issues: http://www,fairjewelry.org
Marc – I just added a link to you under the business resouces blog section, and thanks for the kind words about including the little guys. There are a lot of us and we do care about this. Keep up the great work on your blog.
Hello,
Mzuribeads is an ethical bead company, selling recycled paper beads from Uganda. The beads are made by a cooperative of women in Ndejje, just outside Kampala.
They are water proof because they are thickly varnished, which also gives them a beautiful glossy finish. The beads can be bought online via the website. A brand new super improved site is coming soon.
Thank you for supporting ethical products, we hope very much to see the bead industry take more care in sourcing sustainable and buying responsibly.
Kirstie from Mzuribeads