A local business with an internationalist approach
Sustainable Threads owners advocate buying from poorer countries
BY CHRIS MURINO Staff Writer

Sustainable Threads, North Brunswick, sells goods like pillows, quilts and crafts made by artisans in economically disadvantaged countries.

NORTH BRUNSWICK - Poonam Abbi and Harish Hathiramani are two of a rising number of merchants interested in "fair trade," or giving back to the workers who make their products in economically disadvantaged countries.

"A lot of people who deal with fair trade help each other," Hathiramani said. "The sense of community is a unique feature. We all have the same cause."

Hathiramani and Abbi are the owners of Sustainable Threads, which began business around November 2006 and is located at Riverbend Drive in North Brunswick. It sells handcrafted quilts, ties, table linens and napkins, bedspreads and other garments. The products are made by artisans and weavers, mostly women.

"We want to pay fair wages for their craft work," Hathiramani said. "We not only practice fair wages, we also set a high standard for environmental standards and safe working conditions."

They also make sure the villages the women live in have medical camps and sometimes life insurance, which are not traditionally taken care of.

Abbi, a trained social worker, wanted to help poor villagers, and so for six years she worked with Seva Mandir, a voluntary organization working with rural and tribal villages in South Rajasthan, India.

"The villages there are dependent on agriculture," Abbi said. "For five or six years, there was no rain and so we started this as an implementation program. It's grown to 600 artisans from 15."

Abbi says they also work with another group of 300 artisans in Northeast India, mostly traditional weavers who work on bamboo looms. She is proud of the way fair trade helps these low-income artisans.

"This provides 35 to 50 percent of a household income," Abbi said. "Women never had an opportunity in the past to earn a livelihood in the market. It's helped her leverage. There are less incidents of domestic violence."

The handcrafted products they sell are all about keeping traditions alive. Each quilt that is made is different, and many of the products have stories behind them. An example of those stories is seen in a tag placed on a particular place mat, called Wink of a Peacock: "Peacocks, indigenous to India are well known for their bright plumage, and the male peacock will display his tail during courtship by raising it above and behind his head. In this weave, one closed eye, or the wink of a peacock, is portrayed, in the form of concentric circles."

The quilts that line the basement of Sustainable Threads are particularly bright and colorful. It takes about 50 days for one woman to make a quilt, and every quilt is different.

Although many of the designs are created by the older artisans who've been working on them for years, Abbi comes up with some, and often requests are made by customers.

They also carry a special line of silks called "peace silks," which are more environmentally conscious. The fabric is spun from vacant cocoons of silkworms, after the moth flies out. The silkworms are not boiled and killed like in other silks.

"Three thousand silkworms are killed for one pound of silk," Hathiramani said. "It's a more eco-friendly concept."

Abbi often tries to get the word out about fair trade. She attends trade shows and events and gives talks on why fair trade should be more common.

"More people are concerned about it, more realize the value of it," Abbi said. "It's a new and growing concept."

However, it is a more difficult concept to grasp than, for instance, organic food.

"People know that if you eat organic food, you'll get better health," Abbi said. "This [fair trade] doesn't click because it doesn't relate to you."

Overall, the owners of Sustainable Threads just want people to know that they can make a difference.

"Everyone should realize the power they have," Hathiramani said. "You can be a force to change this world in big and small ways."

Sustainable Threads is a member of The Fair Trade Federation, Co-Op America and is certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The store is located at 84 Riverbend Drive. Hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.