Stumbled across these fair trade shoes the other day by Etiko. Considering purchasing a pair. Has anyone used them before? The video looks really interesting.

Etiko Fair Trade Shoes

Here’s the transcript of the video:

My name is Reyes Guerrero and I am the president of the co-operative Pupore. We make work shoes and alpargatas.

They have always been popular because they are very light, very resistant, and you can walk miles and miles.

In the north of Argentinia, La Pampa, in all the country areas, people normally use canvas to make pants as it is very durable for riding horses. We use the off-cuts left from making the pants to make alpargatas.

Our co-operative is called Pupore, which comes from the Guarani language. Pupore means “leaving footprints”, which for us means that each person leaves their own footprint when they teach another person.

Our co-operative is not just about being a business. We also play a social role. We help everyone in our suburb, in our community, we are helping the community to organise itself, including showing people how to make alpargatas, we fund a school, we are going to help the community with its needs like sewage and housing.

We are six workers here, with another three that come and go, but with the work we do with Etiko we will be able to help a lot of people. If we can get more orders we could employ between 20 and 25 people. We can also employ our families, that each have two or three children, and this all helps to create a chain.

I understand that you have the same ideas as us about helping in this world, to change this world that has become so globalised, under as system where our people live in such bad conditions, which is something that means a lot to all of us, and to Pupore. “Help Fair Trade”!

Here’s a link to the Etiko site: http://www.etiko.com.au
Please let me know if you’ve purchased any of these Etiko Fair Trade Shoes by commenting below.

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