Mike Muchilwa of KICK Trading Company in Kenya was at Ten Thousand Villages in Ephrata recently to explain how the earrings he sells at the store provide a comfortable lifestyle to the artisans he employs. Samuel Macharia, in the background, is the owner of Chuma Wires, a company that handcrafts galimotos, wire push toys, that also are sold at the store.
When someone buys these cards at Ten Thousand Villages, 10 Kenyans are being paid for their labor - everyone from the people who collect the cans and wire to the artisans who shape them.
This wire push toy, commonly called a galimoto, is made by artisans in Kenya and sold at Ten Thousand Villages stores across the country. Bicycle galimotos are called kaboombas, the Swahili word for cyclists.
The earrings that Kenyan Mike Muchilwa sells to Ten Thousand Villages started as cans that otherwise would be thrown away.
Soda cans or food cans — their metal is not only the basis for the earrings, it's income for the people in Kisumu and Nairobi who collect them. Collectors sell the cans to wholesalers, who sell it to other wholesalers, who sell it to retailers, who sell it to the artisans who work for Muchilwa's company, KICK (Kisumu Innovation Centre of Kenya) Trading Company.
Wire to complete the $12 earrings and other projects — such as $8 greeting cards with wire and metal figures attached — comes from worn-out blenders, hairdryers and car alternators.
People who collect these different-sized wires get paid $10 per kilo of wire, Muchilwa said.
Each artisan has an overhead of about $1.50, which pays for the tools needed. They get paid a living wage, close to $300 a month — better than the wage of a policeman or teacher, Muchilwa said.
By the time each pair of earrings or each card has been created, 10 people have benefited financially, Muchilwa, who was at the Ephrata Ten Thousand Villages store last week, said.
He and fellow businessman Samuel Macharia were in Lancaster County for the past two weeks to speak at a national conference for Ten Thousand Villages retailers. Macharia's company, Chuma Wires, makes wire and fabric push toys called galimotos.
The reason so many Kenyans can benefit from KICK Trading Company's jewelry and cards and Macharia's galimotos is because Ten Thousand Villages buys their products and sells them for a profit online and at 150 retail stores in 36 states. Other fair trade companies also buy their products.
In Kenya, most people have to make money by creating their own jobs, Muchilwa said. They work with similar resources, so competition is fierce.
When businessmen or businesswomen can make cooperative arrangements with fair trade agencies to enter the international marketplace, the artisans can make enough money to live in safe places, send their children to good schools, get health care and not worry about feeding their families.
It also gives young men the option to buy cattle to give as a dowry to a prospective wife's parents.
Chuma Wires began selling galimotos, Kenyan children's toys, to children in America through Ten Thousand Villages in 1995. In Kenya, the children make cars or trucks, but Macharia's toy is a bicycle.
The bicyclist's body is made of polyester fabric melted over a candle, and the frame is formed from copper wire. The bicyclist's legs move up and down as he is pushed. Macharia calls his galimoto a kaboomba, the Swahili word for cyclist.
Kenyan children, especially boys, commonly create their own galimotos using wire they collect, Macharia said. When he was a kid, he would try to sneak a coat hanger past his mother to make his wire car.
His mother may not have realized that a coat hanger was actually a good investment for her son. As an adult, Macharia oversaw the the production of 10,000 kaboombas last year.
The toys sell for $6 at Ten Thousand Villages; however, prices will increase after this shipment is sold. The price for new wire that Macharia uses and the cost of living in Kenya is increasing, he explained.
Part of Ten Thousand Villages' mission is to regularly re-evaluate a fair price, Joanne Dirks, Ephrata store manager, said. They recognize the changes in Macharia's costs and "we will honor that," she said.
Ten Thousand Villages also prides itself on keeping long-term relationships with their artists and giving artisans up to 50 percent in cash advances for their orders.
Paying in advance lets the artisans buy supplies, hire staff and move into larger facilities.
The biggest advantage of selling products to Ten Thousand Villages and other fair trade organizations, Muchilwa said, is the dignity it gives to the workers.
Most of the artisans did not have the money or the connections to go to college and get white collar jobs. With fair trade, however, the artisans can earn as much as the professionals.
"These jobs enable people to value life again," Muchilwa said.
Along with lifting the lives of his countrymen, he wants his artisans to produce products that Americans really want to buy. To that end he works with Ten Thousand Villages staff to figure out what new products to introduce.
"We don't want people buying charity," Muchilwa said. "We want people to buy what they want."
E-mail: lespenshade@lnpnews.com