Craft Aid, Mauritius

Since 1982, Craft Aid has been working hard to provide stable employment for Mauritian individuals with disabilities. Through partnership with this group – a Fair Trade organization dedicated to ensuring all profits directly benefit its employees – artisans are trained in constructing furniture, making pressed flower cards, screen-printing organic cotton t-shirts, and packaging Mauritian tea and sugar. Today, Craft Aid has over 125 full-time employees – 40% of whom are disabled – who are experiencing the dignity that comes from being paid fair wages for their work.

In keeping with its mission of helping the most disadvantaged and needy communities in Mauritius, Craft Aid gives priority to hiring and training disabled artisans for jobs in its workshops. The selection of these employees is done in collaboration with various groups such as APEIM (Associations des Parents Inadaptes De l'Ile Maurice ) and NCRD (National Council for the Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons), with whom Craft Aid is a member. As part of its rehabilitation strategy, Craft Aid also employs a number of non-disabled workers in order to foster an atmosphere of diversity and to enable disabled artisans to integrate into larger teams. Through stable employment in a cooperative setting, Craft Aid is striving to improve the health, well-being, and living standards of those in Mauritius who need it most.

Craft Aid provides Shared Earth with a range of handmade greetings cards.