Ten Thousand Villages

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Ten Thousand Villages Store in New Hamburg / Ontario

Ten Thousand Villages or Dix Mille Villages (to German Ten Thousand Villages ) is a North American non-profit organization , the shops of fair trade operates. Ten Thousand Villages was founded after 1946 by North American Mennonites and the Brethren in Christ . The project is still under the umbrella of the Mennonite Central Committee today . The organization is based in Akron in the US state of Pennsylvania.

It is the task of Ten Thousand Villages to pay a fair price through transparent trade routes and in dialogue with the producers in the countries of the third world and thus to support the producers and their families in the poorer countries. Long-term and reliable trade relationships play a major role here. Ecological aspects are also taken into account. The work in the individual shops is mostly done by volunteers from the Mennonite community. The name Ten Thousand Villages goes back to a quote from Mahatma Gandhi , who drew attention to the living conditions in Indian villages. The work of Ten Thousand Villages therefore primarily starts at the local level, where each has its own characteristic cultural structure. In their diversity, they stand for the one world (≈10,000 villages) for which the project is committed.

There is now a wide range of goods from 38 countries in Africa , Asia and Latin America . Since Ten Thousand Villages was founded, one focus has been the sale of handicrafts and textiles . However, groceries such as coffee, tea, rice and chocolate are also sold. There are currently over 100 retail stores ( world stores ) in the United States and Canada. Internationally, Ten Thousand Villages works with other organizations such as the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) , which he co-founded .

history

In 1946 the businesswoman Edna Ruth Byler visited Puerto Rico as a Mennonite aid worker and sold Puerto Rican sewing work on her return to North America. In 1952 there was already a booth at the Mennonite World Conference in Basel . At that time the project was still under the name Needlepoint and Crafts Project (≈ Stick crafts and crafts project ). It was later renamed Selfhelp Crafts . While the project was still a grassroots project in the first few years , it became the official program of the Mennonite Central Committee as early as 1962. Ten years later, the first retail store was finally opened in Ohio , USA . In 1989 the World Fair Trade Organization was founded with the support of Selfhelp Crafts . In 1996 the project finally adopted the name Ten Thousand Villages, which is still used today . In Québec , Canada , the project operates under the French name Dix Mille Villages . The project is one of the first fair trade organizations worldwide.

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