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What We Do
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What we are
Drishtee haat acts as an online, fair trade community and market platform where
artisans, designers, Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs),
and other socially conscious individuals and organizations can easily connect with
one another while selling their products to a global market of socially conscious
consumers.
How we work
Drishtee haat provides buyers with a safe and secure payment gateway, assurance
of the highest quality of products from across India that are, most importantly,
ethically produced and traded. Drishtee haat looks beyond products to the producers
who supply them, and ensures that all producers, designers, and facilitators who
are a part of the Drishtee haat community operate under the same ideals and ethics
(Code of Ethics) that are in line with the international standards of Fair Trade
(Fair Trade Principles).
Drishtee haat also provides much-needed capacity building and technical support
to marginalized producers across India in order to enable their participation in
the Drishtee haat community as producers of high quality products. 10% of all Drishtee
haat sales are reserved for the Capacity Building Fund that is circulated back into
the producer network for skills upgradation, design intervention and product development
assistance. In some cases this funding may also be used to build the capacity of
producer groups in order to prepare and ready them to become members of the Drishtee
haat community. The organization works closely with producer members to ensure quality
products are created and shipped in a timely fashion. To maintain this level of
service and standard of production, Drishtee haat maintains an inventory-on-consignment
of every product sold on the marketplace. This ensure that each product is able
to be shipped immediately, and without threat of delay from the many challenges
facing procurement from rural villages across India, including, monsoon, road outages,
political unrest, etc. This mode of operation allocates plenty of time for producers
to create high quality pieces without time constraints, and allows the Drishtee
haat marketplace to carry very unique pieces from across India, without being threatened
by the difficulty of procuring them on short notice and/or with absolute replication.
Drishtee haat’s unique costing system was carefully crafted to ensure maximum benefit
to the original producer is achieved, while razor-thin margins for facilitation
and value-added services ensure absolute cost efficiency. Beginning with the original
producer, Drishtee haat ensures compensation for all raw material costs, a fair
wage, and a profit margin are provided. A, one-is-to-three model has been built
upon these primary expenses, whereby all secondary, value-added services do not
exceed the initial producer revenue, and all tertiary, market facilitation, retailing
and branding services do not as well. The highly efficient, yet elaborate, model
is ground breaking in the field of fairly traded handicraft and gift items, where
one-is-to-sixteen models are common and are found in some of the most established
fair trade companies around the globe.
Part of a larger mission
Enhancing market access to marginalized artisans and producer groups to help create
more sustainable livelihoods and support rural development is the driving force
behind the Drishtee haat initiative. In this way, Drishtee haat seeks to carry forward
Drishtee Development & Communication’s () mission to achieve rural development
through the use of ICT services, stemming economically induced rural to urban migration.
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