Lisa Mikulski - Freelance Writing - Aid to Artisans article

INK Publications – August 2007
AID TO ARTISANS: A Helping Hand Around The World
BY: Lisa Mikulski
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As our world community becomes smaller, and celebrities call out for us to help and support
various worthy causes, fascination and involvement with developing countries and new cultures
has become a vogue activity for those wishing to help support our neighbors in need. Internet,
TV and still images from around the world open our eyes to some very sobering situations in
what was once considered far away lands. We all want to help someone in need. And we now
have a greater understanding that helping someone around the globe is indeed helping them,
helping ourselves and helping our global community.

While we see the need we should also look to the successes of global partnerships. Prior to the
idea of giving becoming a political or fashionable statement, Clare Brett Smith and her successor
David O’Connor at Aid to Artisans, have been overseeing 30 years of diligent work assisting
artisans in countries such as Haiti, Columbia, Mozambique, Kenya, and India.
ATA’s mission is simple and yet far reaching: To help a world community of craftspeople
become successful entrepreneurs. In providing an extensive knowledge base, ATA assists the
artisan with the business skills needed to improve their lives, the lives of their families, and
communities.

While not a direct seller of goods, this NGO (non government organization) provides what they
call the “market link” and works with talented artisans to assist and train them in product
development, production, business skills and marketing. By “linking” artisans to key buyers
ATA creates relationships, opportunities and jobs. This increase in business acumen thereby
empowers the artisan and enables them to move successfully into a larger market arena. It opens
up options which in the past meant only selling at the local bizarre or market. In this way, ATA
also brings the spirit of cultural craft making to end consumers worldwide and fosters new
understanding and feelings of goodwill between people and nations.

Because of the efforts put forth by ATA, we here in Connecticut can find unique and authentic
multi cultural crafts at Pier 1 Imports, Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Product can be anything from woven baskets from Bolivia, pottery from Peru, or beaded items
from South Africa. The individual purchasing such products here in the US, can know that they
are purchasing something that wasn’t mass manufactured and that their dollars are contributing
to the livelihood of an artist in a developing country.

An often misunderstood aspect of dealing with peoples in developing countries is the notion that
they are the abject poor and unable to help themselves. To the contrary, these people have skills
and “assets they don’t even know they have, and they have things we don’t have. It’s really
important in the world’s diversity,” says Clare Brett Smith. “These people are self reliant,
creative and they are skilled craftsman. By helping this section of the world’s people it gives
them a choice and improves that area’s economy. And that’s the goal.”

Aid to Artisans is not an intrusive organization. Their idea of how to best help artisans is not to
intrude or linger in any given country. It is to get artisans into the real market so that their
businesses will last and be sustainable. ATA teaches them business skills and then they are able
oversee their own businesses. “In short, we are match makers - big time,” says Smith.
Established in 1976, ATA has helped create sustainable livelihoods for over 100,000 artisans in
110 countries. In addition to the Hartford, CT office, Aid to Artisans maintains offices in other
countries as well. Staff and volunteers in those countries to work “hands-on” with the artisan,
provide seminars, offer exposure at New York City and South Africa trade shows, and create
customized programs to solve the challenges of bringing craft into the market from sometimes
very remote places. One good example of this type of challenge can be seen in the work ATA is
doing in Afghanistan. Working to help mostly women in this conflict riddled area “Almost
everything is a problem to be solved: raw materials, transportation, and buyer connections,”
states Smith in ATA’s Fall 2007 Hand/Eye publication. But thus far, ATA has solved many
problems in many countries, and has contributed $30 million dollars directly to the businesses of
artisans.

In addition to teaching the business side of craft, Aid To Artisans also looks for and supports
ways of providing technological advances in production which can have a huge impact on a
country’s ability to export items. One such important initiative is the lead free initiative in
Mexico. Leaded products cannot be exported to other countries and so ATA along with another
organization in Mexico has developed a technology to remove lead from the production process.
“This could have a huge impact for thousands and maybe millions of people,” states ATA
president, David O’Connor. “This creates new jobs, better health for the artisans, new kilns and
has a positive environmental impact.” There is now interest in this technology in India, Turkey
and Morocco.

Like many non profit organizations serving in this capacity, Aid To Artisans gets it’s funding
from private citizens and businesses and major corporations such as The American Express
Foundation, Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and receives active support from
designers, importers and retailers around the world. Aid To Artisans has won numerous awards
and has garnered support from Senator Hillary Clinton who made a generous donation to the
Hartford organization.

“The most satisfying element of my work with ATA is that I create employment for others who
are in a similar position to where I was when I first started out. My life motto and advice to
others is: never give up or lose focus.” - Willard Musarurwa, South African Artisan

“Artisans of Haiti embody two great features of the country: a deep rooted sense of
independence and an irrepressible need to add color and beauty to daily life, in spite of life’s
hardships.” - Chantal Regnault

To learn more about Aid To Artisans, visit their website at:
www.aidtoartisans.org