A Culver City-based company, Net Effects Traders, is doing its bit to empower and improve the day-to-day lives of women in Cambodia by selling fair-trade net bags in the United States.
Ardice Farrow founded Net Effects Traders four years ago, when she was approaching retirement age and wanted to do something to be of service. She wound up in Cambodia working for a nonprofit in the slums of that nation’s capital, Phnom Penh.
“One of my jobs was developing with my Cambodian staff, empowerment and education programs for women who were in fair trade garment centers, and making good wages,” Farrow said. “So I really got to see the difference between the women in the slums who are waiting for hand-outs and hoping to get help from nonprofits, and the women who have jobs.”
According to Farrow, the jobs not only provide the women with money with which to make sound financial decisions for themselves and their families, but also a level of self-confidence and self-esteem. When her contract with the nonprofit came to an end, she wanted to bring a sellable product to the U.S. while providing training and jobs for people in Cambodia who would not necessarily get that opportunity.
“I approached a very small company there, Peace Handicrafts, that made these net bags that I love,” Farrow said. “The owner of the company was a Cambodian woman called Yek Hong Tang, who had been trained in Australia and she had come back to Cambodia about 12 years ago to train hearing-impaired, polio and landmine victims, and disenfranchised moms, to give them a good trade and then provide good working conditions and fair wage jobs. She’s my design and production partner in Cambodia. She’s an incredible designer, she has a great production staff, the quality of the workmanship is perfect all the time, everything is on time, and all the orders are on time and shipped appropriately.”
The bags are made from repurposed industrial or agricultural netting, so there’s zero-waste. Remnants are purchased in the marketplaces to make the bags, and they’re tested in the US, so they are Proposition 65 (the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act) compliant, which means that there’s no lead, hazardous dyes, or any hazardous materials in the bags or the netting.
Farrow has now been working with some of the Cambodian women for five years and considers many of them friends. She’s been able to help provide them with a sense of their own power so that they feel part of a team and contributing to something.
“Most poor families in Cambodia keep their kids out of school, for two reasons,” she said. “One, because school is expensive – you have to pay to go to public school. And two, because they want the kids to be on the streets either scavenging, or begging to make money. These women now have the ability to make sure that the kids are in school and getting a good education, as well as they’re getting well fed and, if the woman happens to be in a difficult marriage or an abusive relationship, she has the financial ability to leave that relationship and still have a really great life.”
Net Effects Traders is not a nonprofit, and Farrow is adamant that she isn’t doing anybody a favor. The women in Cambodia are producing an in-demand product, and Farrow is able to partner with them to sell it in the U.S.
“I really saw the value of nonprofits for urgent care and all of that, but I also saw the dependency,” she said. “I became an advocate of trade instead of aid. The other thing I became a big advocate of is ‘partnership instead of philanthropy.’ We’re all partners and everyone has a different talent and skill, but we’re all contributing to the same end result.”
It’s also important to note that the women in Cambodia are in a good and clean working environment, and are paid a fair wage. This isn’t a sweat-shop situation.
“In our design and production studios, the staff is relatively small compared to the big garment factories over there,” Farrow said. “They have really lovely surroundings, the staff has a shorter week than most people who work in garment centers, and definitely a higher wage. They can also move up, so many people who started as craftsmen are now managers or supervisors, or working in the office or small shops. So there’s lots of mobility based on people’s skillset.”
The bags can be purchased via the neteffectstraders.com website, and anyone using the code CCNews up to June 30 will receive a 10 percent discount.