Shared Earth's Managing Director Jeremy Piercy and Designer Michelle Hughes visited Bali recently and met the producers who work for the Mitra Bali Foundation. They were looking at new product development which will be ready for January 2009.

Mitra Bali is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation in Bali, Indonesia, and like Shared Earth, a member of the International Federation for Fair Trade (IFAT).

Its founder Agung Alit started working with Pekerti, a Fair Trade exporter in Java in 1991. Then in 1993 Shared Earth’s buyer visited him and encouraged him to set up on his own, Shared Earth placed an order and The Mitra Bali Foundation was formed.

Pictured above are Agung Alit, Mitra Bali's founder (left) with Jeremy Piercy, Shared Earth's founder. To the left is one of the trees planted on Shared Earth's behalf.

For many of their wooden products, Mitra Bali use Albesia, a soft wood which grows to maturity in 7-10 years. They have started a scheme whereby landowners receive assistance in return for allowing the trees to be grown on their land. Several trees have been planted on behalf of Shared Earth, using profits from our purchases.

Read more about Mitra Bali...

Our Manchester shop is the latest to be given a new look. Following our recent re-branding exercise, all of our seven shops have or will soon have a complete refit. We are delighted to be able to use some products from our Fair Trade producers in our refit, in particular the signage from Mitra Bali, Indonesia.

Shop address: 51 Piccadilly, Manchester, M1 2AP (Tel - 01612 361 014)

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