chris haughton - Filed under 'nepal'

August 24, 2011

NODE: fair trade rugs

Im VERY excited about this... im co-founding a fair trade project called NODE. We're launching it today.

We will make and sell fair trade rugs. We want to collaborate with great illustrators and designers and produce amazing rugs all through the fair trade group KTS in Kathmandu.

Last year i made some rugs in Nepal and they became really popular. My blog post on it was fwded around and ended up in lots of design magazines. I was then approached by other designers and illustrators who wanted to make their own rugs.

I thought this was a great idea, I was connecting great designers with a great fair trade group. We could even do an exhibition in London of the rugs we made.

There was a couple of problems though, the hassle and cost of doing small orders or one-offs with bank charges and shipping and import duty / declaration forms and all the paperwork put most of the illustrators off.

I also just didnt have the time to actually receive payment and organise shipments etc... the more i got into it the more complicated it got. so the whole thing was stalled.

Then i had a chat with with my friend Akshay Sthapit in Nepal who had recently set up harilo.com

Harilo is a bit like amazon for Nepal. They import and export. And do really complicated logistics so we had the idea of working together.

We have decided to call it Node. Its a point on a network but it also means 'knot' in Latin.

Node can help organise exhibitions and help designers to sell their rugs. But unlike a company we want to operate very transparently. We want to do something new and self-organise, a group of designers making nice things that can be successfully scaled up and hopefully help KTS help out more and more people. Thats the plan anyway..!

At the moment we only have my rugs available to buy but we will be adding more soon

And next year we will be organising an exhibition..

Anyone who wants to get involved (whether designing or buying) please email me

chris (at) vegetablefriedrice (dot) com

have a look at the site...

http://noderugs.com/

Filed under // fair trade nepal node

Comments [1]

March 17, 2011

Kathmandu: World's No. 1 earthquake danger zone

As I watch the horrific aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the scale of the rescue effort needed, I cant believe the turmoil that has struck Japan. It is so alarming and distressing to see a developed country that is prepared for the danger of an earthquake be so totally overwhelmed. I am also becoming more and more alarmed of the scale of the disaster if an earthquake were to strike Kathmandu. I met a seismologist who was working here last year and he told me some extremely frightening statistics, my girlfriend has actually also been working on an article about it for the last few weeks. The verdict is that when an earthquake strikes here it may well be more lethal than Haiti.

GeoHazards International rate Kathmandu as the number one danger spot world-wide. There are several reasons for this... all of them very very alarming.

It is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Mazes of medium-high rise masonry building, virtually none of which are EQ proofed, tiny streets, no green spaces, and no-where to run. The country has been at war up until a few years ago and any regulation that was in place has since been ignored. There was a huge influx of migration into the city during the war and many poorly built buildings went up. The entire valley floor is densely packed with poorly built 3-4 story buildings.

The entire city is built on a sandy former-lakebed which acts like an amplifier for any shaking in the region.

There is only one airport, with one runway. But the route into and out of the airport will likely be blocked. And in fact it is believed to be in the worst area in the city for damage.

There are only 3 roads into and out of Kathmandu. All of them are tiny and cross huge mountains. All 3 are certain to be entirely cut-off due to landslides. Perhaps for many weeks. Considering there are very regularly landslides simply after heavy rainfall i dont find this very surprising. This means that the city is entirely cut off from the world, when the earthquake does hit there may be no way of getting into or out of the city.

As one of the worlds poorest countries it has very few resources. There are 8 working fire-engines in a city of 2.5 million people. The mobile phone building headquarters are not even proofed. Even right now before the earthquake it has only 10 hrs of electricity per day.

A very large earthquake is overdue. The last one was in 1934. They are expected roughy every 75 years. It would likely be a 8+ scale earthquake. The area to the west of Kathmandu is even more overdue.

It is inspiring to see the outpouring of funds and help going to Japan and Haiti and New Zealand. Japan certainly needs all the help it can get right now, but i cant help thinking that funds may be better spent on prevention in areas where lack of money is the number one issue. The frustrating thing is that most of this destruction can be entirely avoided. Experts had been screaming about the potential disaster waiting to happen before Haiti and there was very little done except after the event. Experts are now screaming about the dangers in Kathmandu, Istanbul, Tehran and elsewhere but we dont hear about these until after they happen. And when it does happen to Kathmandu no amount of funds can help because of the problem of getting into the city. I cant help thinking that the media is failing us. As soon as it happens they are all over it with TV cameras and helicopters but right now many people in Kathmandu i have spoken to seem to be completely unaware of the dangers. Some are not even aware they are in an earthquake zone.

Articles

Agence France Presse

Kunda Dixit HIMAL

Facebook

You can donate money to GEOHAZARDS. They seem to be doing a direly needed job. they target the worlds most vulnerable areas and focus on prevention.

http://www.geohaz.org/

www.nset.org.np

Filed under // nepal things that keep me awake at night

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November 10, 2010

My rugs are in London!

My fair trade carpets have finally arrived!

I did them as samples when i was in Nepal a few months back.

Take a look at the blogpost about making them here

If anyone would like to help stock them please get in touch

UPDATE..................

I have just set up a new website for these carpets

please take a look at

www.noderugs.com

to view and order...

thanks!

(download)

Filed under // fair trade kumbeshwar technical school nepal node rug

Comments [2]

August 12, 2010

Mahaguthi, Tulsi Mehar and a lost Owl.

Mahaguthi 'Craft with a Conscience' has the most interesting history of all the fair trade groups in Nepal. I had read about their work many years ago and had always wanted to work with them. I want to give a bit about their history because i think it sums up much of what fair trade is about. It was started by the legendary social reformer Tulsi Mehar in 1923. In the early 20th century Nepal had a very rigid caste and social structure, only the high caste men were educated and literate. Mehar campaigned against this inequality and for his vocal anti-establishment ideas he was thrown out of Nepal by the Nepalese Rana government and ended up exiled in India. His search for truth and equality led him to Mahatma Gandhi and they worked together for many years. His time with Gandhi gave him an opportunity to gain insight to the liberation of the underprivileged. In a system where there are no opportunities for women to bring in money for themselves they must rely on their husbands and fathers. Without the means to improve their own lives women's situations can be very restrictive and this can be hugely problematic if there is domestic violence or abuse. Mehar and Gandhi's vision for reform was to empower women through education and income generation projects so that they can become economically self-reliant. Gandhi wrote to the Prime Minister of Nepal to ask him to let Mehar back into the country. Once back in Kathmandu in 1923 and with a donation from Gandhi, Mehar set up the spinning and weaving develop

ment project that became Mahaguthi. It was not only the first social development project in Nepal but was actually among the first ever manufacturing units in the economically closed feudal country.

Mahaguthi currently takes on 90 new women annually (most are widows or victims of domestic abuse) to train them in literacy and employable skills and school their children as well as supporting a hospital.

I have written and illustrated a children's book 'A Bit Lost' with Borim Press and Walker books and I had the idea to create a small fair trade soft toy to sell along with the book that could be entirely made from scratch by the women at Mahaguthi. The toy is entirely made from raw cotton, using all the traditional cottage industry techniques that Gandhi made famous. It is hand-spun into yarn, dyed, hand-woven and finally sewn all by the women at Mahaguthi.

Gandhi and Tulsi Mehar Shresta

The women in the womens shelter learn to spin and weave and the profits from their crafts are used to support and educate themselves and their children as well as supporting a hospital

Some of the children of the women from Mahaguthi's women's shelter

Some of the younger children can't read their names yet. Interesting system

Some of the women employed at Mahaguthi are deaf or disabled. This is the sign you do when you take Monday off.....'Im outta here. Peace'

a few images from the classroom

this guy is having a really bad banana. not nice.

.....storytime ......YAY!

This is the small hospital funded by Mahaguthi's profits, you can see the portraits of Gandhi and Mehar

This is their ambulance believe it or not. Ambulances come in interesting shapes and sizes in Nepal. And colours!

The front cover of the book

Some owl designs. I wanted to try some different options with the stitching. I needed to make the owl a little flat so that it can still pack together with the book. I think it would sell best as a gift idea together with the book rather than as a separate item.

Weaving

Sewing and designing the first prototypes with Chandrigarh

All the Ullu's! The Hindi word for 'owl' is 'ullu' which is also the word you use if you want to call someone stupid. Owls are thought of as stupid in India and Nepal, the opposite to how they are seen in the west. My owl is definitely a Nepali 'ullu' rather than a western owl. Actually I have become known as ullu-man in the Mahaguthi office (!).Thanks very much to Sumitra, Anita, Chandigarh and Uttara (also to Ono and Sunil who arent here)

*UPDATE* they are now available from my new shop here

Filed under // Un Peu Perdu a bit lost fair trade ihan hukassa kleine eule ganz allein little owl lost mahaguthi mama kwijt nepal 엄마를 잠깐 잃어버렸어요

Comments [1]

August 6, 2010

Kumbeshwar Technical School Carpets

Through People Tree I was introduced to the really excellent Kumbeshwar Technical School I posted about them a little earlier here. Like Mahaguthi they support and train lower caste women and also men. They also support a large school of 260 and an orphanage of 19 children. I have been having exhibitions of my digital illustration work from time to time, i have been converting the files to screens and screen printing them or simply printing them digitally.

I saw the opportunity to collaborate with KTS. They make these amazing natural hand-spun Tibetan wool carpets. The carpet making process is quite similar to the pixel make up of digital images so as many of my images are quite flat with few colours so I had the idea of producing some of my designs as carpets. Together with Satyendra and the design team we found a way to covert digital images directly to carpet graphs which will hopefully make the design process a little easier.

Im really excited about the possibilites with designing carpets though, could be great.

UPDATE.....................................

I have just set up a new website for these carpets

to view and order please take a look at

noderugs.com

Technical training for the adults. KTS have a facility to produce knitware, carpets and also furniture, and they provide training to their workers

School-children-celbrating-childrens-day

From their profits they also fund a school of 260...

...and an orphanage of 19 children

The first test grid i made digitally (i managed to mess up and specify C31 (beige) instead of C30 (black).... Chris you idiot!!!!

it worked ok though!

some details in production

and some designs ......more to come

I will post more about this soon when the first batch of carpets comes through.

If you want to order or enquire about a carpet please mail me .....chris (at) vegetablefriedrice (dot) com

Filed under // fair trade nepal rug social justice sustainability

Comments [0]

July 5, 2010

Getting involved with Fair Trade: some information for designers

Some people have mailed me to ask how I got in contact with the Fair Trade groups etc so i thought I should explain it a bit here.

There is two main certification marks that govern fair trade. The first is the FLO mark on the left above, it oversees commodities such as coffee/tea/fruit and is the most widely recognised. The second is the WFTO mark which oversees the more complex fair trade manufacturing certification. Clothing/stationery/handicrafts any manufactured goods etc all come under this mark so it is the place to go for designers looking to create and manufacture designs and products.

I always wonder why it is the Fair Trade raw commodity mark is so widely recognised but the Fair Trade manufacturing mark isn't as well known. Mainly perhaps because the Fair Trade raw commodity mark products can sell themselves without much help from design (coffee, tea etc need nothing more than a packet) but fair trade manufactured products aren't as easy because they heavily rely on design. There are great companies such as People Tree that are doing their bit to show that its possible to do great designs in fair trade, but in general I think its clear that there still isn't enough great design. Why isn't it everywhere? More than 50% of coffee sold in the UK is fair trade and still rapidly growing but in clothing it is less than one percent. If there were more it would be a huge force in poverty reduction and the main thing I see holding it back is design.

Having worked myself in advertising and commercial design for a long time I had become very disillusioned in the world and business of design, and I am very grateful to the people I have met in Fair Trade who have reminded me again what good design can be. There are some amazing traditional crafts and hand made objects that just cannot be produced industrially that lend themselves if designed nicely to really beautiful high-end design products. Textile designers in particular would be blown away. Not only that but I have met some pretty amazing and inspiring people. It has been a great opportunity for me to take some time to do something a bit different that is generated by myself rather than commissioned and it has led my design work into lots of new and unexpected directions.

For anyone who is thinking about getting involved they can go straight to the WFTO website here and contact producer groups all over the world by region/country or by product type. Literally anything you can think of (that can be non-industrially manufactured) can be made somewhere by some co-operative. You can also join them on facebook here

If you have any other questions please leave a comment below.

Some amazing hand-woven fabric swatches from ACP. The craftsmanship and work here is just mind-blowing. The stuff you could do with this....!

Even just very simple screen prints work so well on hand-woven fabrics

bag prints...

and some soft toys.

Filed under // fair trade india nepal

Comments [1]

June 2, 2010

People Tree prototypes

I have just been working on some fair trade soft toys here in Nepal with ACP

We still have to iron out a few things ...probably going to shrink them in size a little... but hopefully they will be available in autumn 2011 from Peopletree

new nepali words of the day: 'bandha sukya' = 'monkey finished'

Filed under // childrens fair trade nepal

Comments [2]

May 7, 2010

Kathmandu University Illustration Workshop

These are some of the images from the illustrators at my workshop at Kathmandu University. We combined images from Nepali folk stories and legends with other images to create new ways of telling the stories. Thanks very much to all the students at KU. The standard of work was really very high.

You can read more about it here

the images below are by (top to bottom) Sadhana Poudel, Aditya and Kanchan Burathoki

read the photo.circle post about it here