What is fair trade?

Fair trade is an alternative model to traditional commerce which looks to overcome the gaps that exists between developing countries and developed ones by reducing the margins between origin and destiny. This kind of commerce is focused on protecting human rights and the environment with fair practices where respect, dialogue and transparency are essential. Fair trade rejects any kind of forced labor, child labor and gender inequality.

As an example, if a traditional business brand has a cost of 50 cent per sneaker in a country "X" and then they decide to sell it for 60 euros, they would be obtaining a huge margin of profit for those sneakers.

If instead of only thinking about getting the most profit possible traditional businesses think about improving life standards of the people first, then international commerce would change a lot, and so would lifes of a lot of people. For this reason, another of the goals of this kind of commerce is that it focuses more on the human perspective rather than on the lucrative one.

In the case of Tubombele Pamo, the relationship established with the group of women that make the bags is based on the principles of equity, transparency, justice, respect, fair payment and good conditions. The cost we have of purchasing the bags from them is the fairest possible, meaning that there is barely any margin for us. Our purpose is to sell them at an affordable price so that the consumer wouldn't mind purchasing again.

As we can see, the goal with this is not to get the most profit, as a traditional commerce would try to pay yhe least for the production and try to sell it as expensive as the market allows them so that they obtain big profits. 

We are always compromised with the group of women and work to provide them with a better life standard for them and their families, so that they can maintain them and/or open their own stores. We also want to highlight that we want to be an additional support in their lifes so that they not only depend on this initiative, as the more sources of income they have the better. 

We also want to change the generalized image that exists about a lot of african countries, because at the same time that you are contributing to a good cause, the product gives us some value and is useful on a daily basis.