I have had the privilege of serving on the Ten Thousand Villages (TTV) Board for the last year and a half, and during that time I have come to more fully appreciate the enormous positive impact that this great organization has had on poor and oppressed people (at least 70% of which are women) throughout the Third World.
TTV forever changes the lives of those it touches by providing them with a fair price and a strong market for their craftwork and by training them in how to sustain and grow their fledgling businesses.
It may be the only opportunity many will ever have to break the cycle of poverty that has enslaved them for generations, and it all depends upon TTV’s ability to not only sustain but grow the market for their artisan products. The market I am referring to is the one created by the people who patronize all of the small TTV stores across the nation, like our Oak Park store at Marion and Westgate.
There are two primary ways to ensure the growth of this market: One is through the quality of the individually produced artisan crafts themselves, and that level of quality is always present. The other way is by spreading the word of the true mission of TTV. Therein lies the challenge.
The Oak Park store has many loyal customers who know and understand the mission of TTV, but there are far too many people that we have yet to reach.
A practice we employ at our board meetings may just be the most effective way we have to communicate the mission to the public. Once a month, a different board member shares a story with the rest of the board, about a craftsperson whose product is on display in our store. These stories are always powerful reminders of the critical role TTV plays in people’s lives. I am sharing one of these stories now in the hope that it will also inspire readers, who are not aware of TTV and its mission, to become supporters and customers in Oak Park.
Introducing Rosa
Rosa lived in a small mountain village in Peru with her husband and children. One day a brutal terrorist organization called “Shining Path” arrived in the village. They immediately killed Rosa’s husband and several other men. Rosa was told by one of the group’s members that she and her children would also be killed unless they served the interests of Shining Path. When the group left, Ana gathered her children and told them the family was moving to Lima. They began the long trek to Lima with the clothes they were wearing as their only possessions.
Once in Lima, Rosa found few options. She stopped on a small, barren patch of earth along a busy roadside, and announced that this would be their new home. She found four stones and placed one in each corner to define the boundaries of their new home. They then went about the business of finding some way to survive.
Rosa observed an older woman, who was creating beautiful miniature replicas of vicuna, a llama-like animal found in the Andes mountains, and asked the woman if she would show her how to make them. The old woman wanted nothing to do with Rosa and refused to help her in any way. For close to one year, undeterred, Rosa would check in with the old lady and kindly repeat her request. Over time the old woman relented and taught Rosa her craft.
She soon developed the skills necessary to make these beautiful replicas and began producing her own miniature vicuna within the four-stone demarcated area she called home.
It was there that a representative of Ten Thousand Villages found Rosa and made her an offer that would change her life forever. The TTV rep set a fair price for Rosa’s vicuna (many, many times what Rosa had been charging for her work) and entered into an agreement with her to periodically purchase a set number from her.
Rosa was now really in business and she and her children, for the first time, had hope. Over the years, she has expanded her business several times and now owns a two-story building, which she constructed on her original barren patch of land, and employs more than a half-dozen people.
Most importantly, Rosa’s children do not spend their days on the streets of Lima begging for food. They are, instead, in school learning skills that will give them options they could have only dreamed of before.
You can become part of these stories just by stopping in the store. Look around. I guarantee you, something will grab your eye. There is someone like Rosa standing behind every piece.
Ray Heise, former attorney for the village of Oak Park, is a Ten Thousand Villages board member.