ARTISAN COMMUNITY

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About Us
ARTISAN COMMUNITY was founded in 2006 under the name of NEPALAYA, operating from Bötzingen in Germany and Kathmandu, Nepal. Nepal is young republic struggling with severe poverty and social discrimination, with women most forcefully hit by any discriminating issues. Since 2009 we are offering fair and decent working conditions to socially marginalized persons, and became well-known both as a reliable employer and fair business partner in the Kathmandu region, as well as a German supplier of Fair Trade goods with a high level of engagement in the European and global Fair Trade movement. In 2025 we decided to shift the focus to the people and groups behind the high quality Fair Trade products we have on offer, and renamed as ARTISAN COMMUNITY. The sewing manufacture creating ARTISAN COMMUNITY’S fair fashion is located in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Men and women of different religious affiliation and castes work together in the manufacture: Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus, among them members of the caste of the „untouchables “. These have to suffer from caste discrimination in a particularly fatal way. Working together with groups of artisans producing wonderful felt and lokta paper items as well as traditional singing bowls or eco leather carefully tanned with regional herbs in a 40 days process – this is what we stand for and wanted to give a new focus by renaming NEPALAYA to our new name ARTISAN COMMUNITY.

Mission Statement

Fair trade at ARTISAN COMMUNITY means: ֎ Creating opportunities: employing minorities and underprivileged men and women, who face great difficulties to obtain a decent job in the regular Nepalese employment market. ֎ No child labour. ֎ Equal wage for equal work: independent of sex, gender, race or any other personal features. ֎ Women’s Empowerment: Especially the felting sector offers employment to women. A fair payment enables the women to give their own fair share to their family’s income, and thus raising their self-confidence as well as ensuring a respected position within the mostly paternalistic family structures. ֎ Fair living wages: additional to a fair wage all employees receive health, accident and old age pension insurance benefits. ֎ Work with respect: some of the employees for the first time of their life enjoy the experience to be treated with the same respect as all others. ֎ Fit for the future: The employees, and especially the women are offered advanced training and further education. They are strongly encouraged to care for their children’s education, and supported in financing their children’s visit of a school with good education standards. ֎ Fair & eco supply channels: our suppliers are partners in fair trade, and produce according to fair trade principles. The share of our textile production made with organic cotton cloth has increased to well over 90 %, supplemented by working with even more sustainable lyocell fabrics. In the wool sector we only work with No-Mulesing-Wool originating from New Zealand, and with carefully picked Cashmere Wool respecting the animals’ well-being.
Additional Information

Fair Trade Organization

Membership Type

2006

Founded in

0-25

Employees number

Retail

Selling retail or wholesale

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