We are a New Member of the Fair Trade Federation!

Passion Lilie is fully dedicated to improving the lives of the artisans and communities we work with. Ethical and fair trade business practices, not profit, guide every business decision we make.

We provide fair wages that exceed the minimum wage, we pay our artisans in advance for their work and we provide financial and business education for the organizations we work with.

These organizations create empowering and positive work environments, they seek out individuals in need and help those individuals through job training, money management, health care and education.

Our number one goal in establishing our business was to join the Fair Trade Federation to become apart of a local (North American) based businesses who are also fully dedicated to fair trade.

This summer we spent an extensive period of time with each of our artisan groups interviewing them, vetting the workplace and understanding the community in order to determine if they meet the fair trade criteria. We put all this information together for the Fair Trade Federation. This was not a simple application, it was very involved.

And…..

On Thursday, we opened our email to see the subject: “Acceptance Letter”

We were more then thrilled to reach this milestone in our business!

This December we will be setting up goals on how to best spread the good gospel about fair trade and continue to enhance the lives of our artisans as well as developing new relationships with artisans groups who are in need of fair wages and community development.

Membership vs Certification: Business can be members. Factories, Workshops and Cooperatives can be certified.

The stitching unit we work with in India is certified by the World Fair Trade Organization, which means that a certifying party visits the physical unit to ensure they meet the criteria as laid out by the World Fair Trade Organization. Fair Trade Federation is a membership based system that is awarded to businesses who have been carefully screened to verify their fair trade practices.