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A Big Award, Big Day and Big Dreams
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In honor of World Day Against Child Labor on June 12 – a big day for our movement – GoodWeave took the stage at
UNICEF headquarters in New York for a panel “End Child Labour in Supply Chains: It’s Everyone’s Business” and in Washington, DC for U.S. Department of Labor's panel with the same theme. It was a chance to share the organization’s expanding work to combat child and forced labor in new industries. Stay tuned: we’ll be able to announce more in our next newsletter.
According to the latest Global Slavery Index, the estimated number of slaves in the world is up to 45.8 million, with India topping the list of offenders.That’s a big and daunting number, but inside this newsletter, you’ll read about the big award, big legislative change and big new players that we have on our side.
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Schwab Foundation Names CEO Nina Smith Social Entrepreneur of the Year
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We are thrilled to announce that CEO Nina Smith has earned the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. We will be formally recognized at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, China later this month. To leverage this moment, we published this blog for Huffington Post about why child labor persists in the global economy.
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We want to introduce you to someone very special. On May 3, we rescued this young boy. When you look in his eyes, you can tell that Dorje has lived beyond his years. Dorje is 12, on the verge of becoming a teenager, and yet has already been trafficked across borders and worked as an animal handler at a brick kiln in Nepal.
Dorje is the very first child we rescued since expanding our work beyond the carpet sector. He is now staying and studying at Hamro Ghar ("our home"), our transit home in Kathmandu.
Last week, Dorje was featured on a
PBS NewsHour report
that looked inside Nepal’s brick industry and the country's efforts to rebuild.
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Join us in welcoming our most recent importer partners:
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In the spring, we reached out to our supporters – as we do every year in April – to honor Iqbal Masih. He is the young carpet slave who managed to escape and dedicated the rest of his life to freeing children still trapped on the looms. For speaking out, Iqbal was murdered near his hometown in Pakistan on April 16, 1995. He was just 12 years old.
We would like to thank all the individuals and institutions that provided vital support to honor Iqbal's memory. Together, we raised $11,029. The money was quickly directed to programs that quite literally take children out of the hands of traffickers – precisely Iqbal's dream.
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We also extend our deepest thanks to GoodWeave's latest institutional grantors and major donors:
C&A Foundation
The Khaled Hosseini Foundation
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How GoodWeave and Target are Making Dreams Come True in Panipat, India
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This heartwarming 2-minute video by Remake, a company that leverages technology and visual storytelling to connect shoppers and makers around the world, tells the story of a veteran weaver. After two decades of work, he recently started at a Target vendor rug factory, and suddenly his dreams started coming true. “See,” he says, “all factories are not the same.” Now, because of Target’s partnership with GoodWeave, he can send his children to school. Watch how proud he is when he drops off his daughters in the morning.
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One Year After the Earthquakes in Kathmandu, Nepal
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One year ago, two powerful earthquakes rocked Nepal, destroying lives and livelihoods. This powerful video is about what happened next. It shows the very tangible difference we have been able to make with your generosity. This video follows one carpet exporter, Biman. It’s a story of recovery which enabled him to provide meaningful jobs and support to many others.
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India’s New Anti-Trafficking Legislation: What You Should Know
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India tops the global slavery index. To address this crisis, India’s minister for women and children just announced a draft of the first-ever comprehensive anti-human trafficking law.
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Hand-knotted Rug Production Caught on Video
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GoodWeave licensee Jacaranda Carpets'
video
Hand-knotting the Himalayan Way
features all the key stages of production, from carding the sheared wool, through to spinning and dyeing, weaving and finishing. Watching a rug emerge on the loom at roughly 10 linear centimeters per day should be compulsory viewing for anyone involved in selling or promoting rugs.
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Reflections from the Field
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Veteran GoodWeave International board member Edward Millard spent two days in the field with our staff inspectors, visiting our work in the carpet sector and for a new apparel pilot with C&A Foundation. Mr. Millard drove for long hours on bumpy and crowded roads, stopping in towns and villages in western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana states. He entered places where most people do not go – back alleys and other hidden production sites – where his presence was as much a novelty as it would be for any western buyer or government official. More about his journey here.
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Other photos: © Katha Haru, © Lorenzo Tugnoli, © U. Roberto Romano
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