23rd May 2011

What’s so special about handmade?

If you ask six people why they like handmade they will probably give you six different reasons. It’s unique, it’s made with love and care, it’s personal. All very valid and important reasons but for us at Hathay Bunano the single most important reason for buying handmade is that it creates rural employment.

We love that it takes longer to make something by hand than it does by machine. All those extra hours of work mean extra employment for women working in rural Bangladesh. We love that they can be made without electricity. And with more than 50% of people in Bangladesh off the grid and with no regular electricity supply, this is important. We love the sense of community that is developed by women working and chatting together with work that is not physically demanding. Work that generally progresses even better when you are chatting and doing it with friends.

There’s something of a handmade revolution going on all around us at the moment; an interesting mix of the high tech of the internet and the intimacy of little village craft markets. In celebration of that we’ve made an emblem for supporting handmade and think of it as a badge that will bind us all together. For Pebble we’ve coloured it turquoise because that works for us, but you could recolour it and make it your own. Contact me at info@pebblechild.com if you’d like to know more about using the ‘supporting handmade’ logo.

Pebble celebrates handmade.

Samantha