Gaia's Fair Trade Gifts

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Gai·a
1. noun Greek Mythology
The goddess of the earth.

2. noun Etymology: Greek, Gaea
The hypothesis that the earth functions as a single organism.

As the name would suggest, Gaia's Fair Trade Gifts is definitely connected to the earth — and to promoting the idea that we are all interconnected. Owner Leah Oreel certainly makes a difference in the lives of people all over the planet.

Oreel is beautiful inside and out, with a warm smile and a benevolent humanity that lights up her eyes as she speaks passionately about helping others, a quality that is apparently bred in the bone, "My sister Lisa and I always wanted to be able to help people, we were always looking to see how we could contribute."

As a child in northern Saskatchewan, Oreel often travelled south to Saskatoon with her mother and sister to visit a Ten Thousand Villages store. Inspired by the concept of fair trade, the sisters vowed to one day open a similar store. While in school — Oreel studying Holistic Therapies, her sister Lisa, International Relations — they became disenchanted with the state of the world and decided that there was no time to waste.

At the age of 21, after five months of market research, Oreel's dream became a reality. "Being small town girls, my sister and I wanted to move to a smaller community to start the store, but somewhere really progressive, and so luckily we discovered the Sunshine Coast." The sisters opened the third independently owned retail business in Canada to be monitored by the watchdog Fair Trade Federation. Although her sister married and moved away (and currently works for Ten Thousand Villages), Oreel's vision is thriving.

Stacked amid the fabric, purses, incense, clothing, carvings, coffee and cocoa stands a large multicoloured mountain of straw baskets. The baskets come from a co-op in a village in northern Ghana, where the villagers currently walk a day to pick up the straw, and a day back. "The long term goal with this co-operative is to be able to set up better agriculture in their area, so that they can grow their own straw, and they don't have to take a two day journey." Oreel contributes to this aim by making a yearly commitment to buy at a fair price, about three times what they would normally receive.

As they are governed by the FTF, Gaia must adhere to a number of trade guidelines, such as ensuring people work in a healthy and dignified setting while practicing environmental sustainability, and paying a fair wage for products. A fair or living wage is defined as one that supplies the key needs of food, shelter, healthcare, education for children, and room to save, an essential for enduring change.

According to the Fair Trade Resource network, in a free trade environment artists are often lucky if they see even one percent of the retail price; fair trade brings anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of retail. As well, notes Oreel, "If we make any extra profit on a product, we send it back. This year I did a profit share with a group in Uganda."

Gaia's unique products come from diverse sources throughout the world. "Ghana, Uganda, Guatemala and Nepal are the main ones, but we are working in about 23 countries with approximately 38 cooperatives, 13 of which are strictly women's co-ops." says Oreel, "It's very fulfilling. I go to bed at night, and know I've helped people today."

Gaia's Fair Trade Gifts
307-287 Gower Point Road,
Gibsons.

For more information on fair trade go to www.fairtraderesource.org .