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Vision, Mission & Principles
Our Vision
One day all artisans in the developing countries will earn a fair wage, be treated with dignity and respect and be able to live a life of quality.
Our Mission
Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income to Third World people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America.
Ten Thousand Villages works with artisans who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed. This income artisans earn helps pay for food, education, health care and housing.
Our Principles
Ten Thousand Villages operates as a business with a compassionate mission by maintaining integrity in our actions and relationships. We market quality products from diverse cultures around the world made by people that we know and care enough about to do business with in a manner that together we consider fair.
- We honor the value of seeking to bring justice and hope to the poor.
- We trade with artisan groups who pay fair wages and demonstrate concern for their members welfare.
- We provide consistent purchases, advances and prompt final payments to artisans.
- We increase market share in North America for fairly traded handicrafts.
- We market quality products that are crafted by underemployed artisans.
- We build sustainable operations using a variety of sales channels, including a network of stores with a common identity.
- We choose handicrafts that reflect and reinforce rich cultural traditions, that are environmentally sensitive, and which appeal to the North American consumer.
- We encourage North American customers to learn about fair trade and to appreciate artisans’ cultural heritage and life circumstances with joy and respect.
- We use resources carefully and value volunteers who work in our North American operations.
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