About
OVERVIEW
Our logo assures you that
the practices used to create this product take the Bolivian artisans toward a financial self sufficiency, increasing native producers income, improving their quality of life, and the relationship with their communities, within an economically and environmentally sustainable setting; focusing on the creation of Corporate Social Responsibility awareness on micro and small businesses.
The social impact statements that most closely apply to our organization's mission statement
Economic empowerment and value, Quality of life in the community, Preserving tradition and cultural legacies, Self-empowerment, Energy conservation, Eco-friendly production, Environmental conservation, Animal welfare, Species preservation
Our organization screens
Raw materials, Production process, Impact of use, Business practices
How often our organization monitors compliance of our standards
Quarterly, At random
How our organization monitors compliance of our standards
On-site audit, Peer review
Our mission statement
To provide, in a easily manner, a new alternative to commercialize handcrafted products following the Fair Trade priciples and the Social Entrepreneurship, to artisan families and small businesses in Bolivia, with the new tools of e-commerce, in a cooperative basis.
The history of our organization
Our organization was born when we were volunteers at the public Hospital in my city, Cochabamba. We were members of "Mouvement Smile", a young volunteers group that was used to help inpatients with their medicines and medical supplies,organizing fundraising activities to pay for their medical bills.
Also, we had a "occupational therapy program". We taught selected patients to do handcrafts with recycled materials, and then we sold the crafts among friends and relatives, all the profit was for the author of these crafts, also we engaged local businesses to support these activities in exchange of some advertising.
Then, we organized a group of the best artisans we had, and finally we founded The Best Artisan, a cooperative institution that promotes the principles of Fair Trade and Social Entrepreneurship in Bolivia.
Altough the original group of artisans have changed, our vision and principles keep as the beginning.
Our organization's standards for producers, products, or sellers
How we developed our standards
At the beginning, we invited other young professionals to help us to organize our organization, in a volunteer basis. Then, we could start with the Board of Directors, and we could get some financial aid from our local activities to start our activities with hired personnel.
This helped us to develop guidelines, speechs and workshops in a professional manner and to offer e-commerce based tools to teach the artisans an alternative to sell their products and to make a social impact in their communities.
Summary of our process for screening new producers, products, or sellers
First of all, we contact with associations and invite their members for a public speech about our organization and our activities.
Then, the interested people, fill our application form.
Then we schedule a visit with them, we meet the members, share a time to know as deep as possible, their production processes, expectations, their members and their families.
Then, we send a report to our organization and in an General Assembly we accept or deny the application of each group visited.
The accepted groups undergo trough a workshops and speech activities to promote the principles and to ask them to change any process or practice to accomplish the Social Entrepreneurship and Fair Trade if they didn't at the first visit.
Then, we visit them periodically and ramdomly, also to understand their problems and challenges that emerge continuously.
How we regularly monitor compliance of our standards
Our monitoring process including who performs the monitoring
We organize two different "on campus" visits to the communities we work with, with two main objectives:
First, previously announced, to visit all the members, to share experiences, and skills with all or at least the mayority of members in one community.
This visit is performed by a members comission three times per year
Second, at a ramdom basis, without previous announce, to evaluate the goals accomplishment and the Social Entrepreneurship practices.
This visit is performed by a inter institutional commision, made of some members of us, and other persons (technical advisors, partners, and when is possible, clients) who evaluate the practices and the impact of our programs on the community's life.
The fee structure for our monitoring system
We search for financial aid to the local government for the first stages of our programs. Also, trough seller partners, we ask for a 8% comission of every product we sell trough internet, to encourage and engage the artisans with this action. We avoid a charity attitude, since we promote the self empowerment among our members, and it implies the comission for the products sold as part of their cost analysis.
Monitored regions
We work with familiar workshops in several regions (mainly rural, but also urban areas) of Bolivia: Cochabamba, Potosi, Oruro, La Paz, Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Chuquisaca.
We visit regularlly our groups in order to share experiences, orders, and skills that we receive from other partners. Also, we promote the Social entrepreneurship principles among all our members.
More information about our organization
We'd also like to tell you...
For businesses or producers that want to work with us, we recommend you do the following...
The Fair Trade principles are not far to accomplish, it's a new way to do businesses, in a socially responsible manner.
We encourage any person or institution that produces something, to contact us only if you agree with these principles. Our certification is a dynamic process that takes time and effort, both from you and from us, but offers big opportunities to be Social responsible businesses in our region.