Safia Minney is an inspiration to anyone involved in social entrepreneurship and fair trade - the founder of Global Village and People Tree, she has built a company that brings social, environmental and educational benefit to communities of workers in 12 countries, and has been hugely influential in educating the UK market on the importance of fair trade.
This video of Safia talking at an Inspiring Entrepreneurs event at the British Library in September gives some insights into the background and workings of People Tree, and offers some surprising statistics:
“People Tree is a brand that would use fashion to empower as many people as possible - so not only would we use organic and fair trade cotton we would also hand weave it, we would hand embellish it… and in this way we might be able to employ not one person for 13 minutes (which is the average length of production time of a garment today) but one person for between one day and four days…creating a business model that will bring and deliver livelihoods into rural areas”
“People Tree employs 3000 people… so there are roughly 15000 people that are eating from the clothes that People Tree sells… and is increasing incomes and revenue levels for those people by around 150%… those profits are invested back into the fairtrade model, helping more people benefit from work opportunities”
I’m definitely looking forward to hearing her talk tomorrow….
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ftf09 keynote speaker: Safia Minney
Safia Minney is an inspiration to anyone involved in social entrepreneurship and fair trade - the founder of Global Village and People Tree, she has built a company that brings social, environmental and educational benefit to communities of workers in 12 countries, and has been hugely influential in educating the UK market on the importance of fair trade.
This video of Safia talking at an Inspiring Entrepreneurs event at the British Library in September gives some insights into the background and workings of People Tree, and offers some surprising statistics:
“People Tree is a brand that would use fashion to empower as many people as possible - so not only would we use organic and fair trade cotton we would also hand weave it, we would hand embellish it… and in this way we might be able to employ not one person for 13 minutes (which is the average length of production time of a garment today) but one person for between one day and four days…creating a business model that will bring and deliver livelihoods into rural areas”
“People Tree employs 3000 people… so there are roughly 15000 people that are eating from the clothes that People Tree sells… and is increasing incomes and revenue levels for those people by around 150%… those profits are invested back into the fairtrade model, helping more people benefit from work opportunities”
I’m definitely looking forward to hearing her talk tomorrow….