Here's a cool San Jose Mercury News story on Good Paper, a Bay Area-based global fair-trade company founded by Silicon Valley ex-techie Jimmy Quach, selling "highly creative paper products from communities that are providing jobs to the most vulnerable of society": Greeting cards reach out to rescued women.
In 2008, he launched Good Paper, a global fair-trade company. He sells greeting cards made by Rwandans orphaned by genocide, handbags made from phone books and newspapers by women in Manila slums, and stationary made from recycled paper and cloth by villagers in northern India. His products are sold in 400 stores across the country.Good Papers newly launched product line, Sanctuary Spring exclusively employs women who are escaping prostitution in the Philippines. The simple purchase of a greeting car will go towards programs that assist these women in their restoration process while enabling them to provide food and education for their families. That is awesome. Learn more about Good Paper here.
Haunted by what he had learned about the sex trade the Philippines, he recently joined forces with Samaritana to help the rescued prostitutes who fill its shelter. Without steady work, the women would be tempted to go back to the streets. So Quach pays them $6 a day — a decent wage in metro Manila — to create cards for holidays, birthdays and even nonoccasions.
"For people who have been forced into that situation for so long and have so little self-esteem," he said, "it can be really significant to be able to do something creative, to produce something beautiful and good."