Gifts and Graces: A Blessing to Livelihood Programs
Product Development
Gifts and Graces would like to share that community producers “should not depend on charity because they have their capacity to create a prosperous life from their own efforts and by creating beautiful products with quality,” says Greg.
“Consumers would surely patronize us if we continue to make beautiful designs for products, but with quality,” says Greg. They would like the consumers to remember that “Gifts and Graces products are quality products, have beautiful overall design, created under Fair Trade principles and environment-friendly,” Greg added.
Disadvantaged groups benefit a lot because of the partnership built between G&G and NGOs and POs – they are given a chance to market their products to high-end retailers, thus giving them more income. They earn not because they depend on other people or organizations, but because they work hard and incorporate beauty and quality of products.
There’s probably a thousand of non government organizations (NGO) and people’s organizations (PO) already in the Philippines which provide the less fortunate with livelihood programs to not only sustain, but to enhance their way of living. But according to the survey conducted by Sandy Romualdez and Marge Barro, founders of Gifts and Graces, NGOs and POs need help in product development and access to markets for the products that they are able to produce through these livelihood programs. Gifts and Graces Fair Trade Foundation, Inc. was founded last January 2006 as the answer to this need. “Gifts and Graces is a social enterprise which helps provide more income to the disadvantaged groups that are part of the livelihood programs of NGOs and POs,” explained Gregorie ‘Greg’ Perez, Executive Director of Gifts and Graces.
More NGOs and POs, More Blessings
Gifts and Graces have established partnerships with 20 groups as of the moment, including groups of street children, urban poor families, people who just got out of prison, etc. A group should have production or they should have products already so that we would be able to assist them with. Examples of products that we support now are bags made of newspaper and tarpaulin, key chains made of beautiful stones, etc.
“Consumers would surely patronize us if we continue to make beautiful designs for products, but with quality,” says Greg. They would like the consumers to remember that “Gifts and Graces products are quality products, have beautiful overall design, created under Fair Trade principles and environment-friendly,” Greg added.
Market Access
Gifts and Graces help market products of NGOs and POs to big retailers like SM, Kultura, Rustan’s, etc. Disadvantaged groups do not usually reach these stores because, first and foremost, they could not deliver the number of orders required. The secret that G&G does: proper delegation. For example, 4000 bags are needed to be delivered; G&G properly distributes this number of order to 4 groups. Second, the groups could not attend to all the legal requirements needed by the bigger markets, and that’s what Gifts and Graces is here for.
The most important thing here is, they don’t need to wait for all the products to be sold before they would actually be paid for. Because of G&G, community producers would be paid right away for the products that they create. They are provided with down payment before they actually create the products so they would have budget to buy the raw materials needed. The rest of the payment is given during the delivery of the finished products.
Gifts and Graces Fair Trade Foundation, Inc.
Unit 131 Mile Long Building
G/F Amorsolo St., Makati City
G/F Amorsolo St., Makati City
Tel.: (02) 759-2525
Email: info@giftsandgraces.com or giftsandgraces@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.giftsandgraces.com
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