InDEPTH | WEAVING BETTER LIVES
nered with GoodWeave “to insure there’s no child labor. I think that’s an important part of the process. I want to be sure that my workers are taken care of,” affirms Tupu. “They do beautiful, amazing work—part of [this] is honoring them, and what they do, and the way that they do it.” Tupu appreciates GoodWeave’s regular visits to each factory, to support “edu- cation for the kids and better working conditions,” as well as other valuable benefits. Frequent updates report “the impact they have on a community, in- cluding how many children have been affected. It’s almost like a newsletter, telling us about current risks to vulner- able [areas]. We learn who’s in leader- ship roles, and what’s happening in education, working conditions and children’s rights in that specific location. It’s important to me that the money we pay as fees goes to the community, to make certain that we’re giving back that way,” she adds. Lucy Tupu Design Studio’s rugs are made at a family-run business in Katmandu. “I’m always talking to the founder/owner, making sure that he and his family and the people who work for them are okay,” says Tupu. Kurtz has visited Nepal once or twice a year, since the early 1990s. When her father, company founder John Kurtz, first started production there, “the humanitarian aspects were important to him,” she recounts. He was working with USAID to help teach people about rug production and their rights. New Moon soon aligned with GoodWeave, when it began, as a “third party that would make sure there was oversight.” Kurtz calls GoodWeave’s Hamro Ghar facility, “near and dear to my heart. What do you do if you find something wrong in a workplace?” she asks. ”Hamro Ghar is a program that offers the ability to move forward. It’s a boarding school for when they’ve rescued a child from a factory, and couldn’t find the parents. It allows a child to get an education in a struc- tured social setting. There is so much
Erika Kurtz with her daughter and three children currently at Hamro Ghar. © New Moon Rugs
“ It brings peace of mind to have GoodWeave providing drop-in inspection and supervision so that things aren’t happening that I don’t know about. “ ERIKA KURTZ, NEW MOON RUGS
Both McDarrah and Kurtz selected the same source of protection for their workers in Nepal: GoodWeave Interna- tional. This non-profit organization, founded in 1994 by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, is the leading global institution working to stop child and forced labor in supply chains. They have already restored freedom to 10,876 children and provided educa- tional opportunities to 102,856. In 2004, over 125,000 workers were pro- tected under the GoodWeave Stan- dard. Their global impact goes beyond numbers, as GoodWeave promotes ethical labor practices and safeguards the rights of children and workers. Partnering with GoodWeave, “was a necessary step for us, because of the tension between Western standards, ideals, customs and history, and those in less developed communities,” ex-
plains McDarrah. “The idea of a family working together may be accepted in less [modernized] countries, so it can seem natural to have children at work near their parents, like at a family farm in the US. In either case, local monitor- ing is the only way to overcome those traditions.” For Kurtz, “It brings peace of mind to have GoodWeave providing drop-in inspection and supervision so that things aren’t happening that I don’t know about. If New Moon can’t pro- vide logistical support, it’s important to have an impartial third party there for us. To me, that support on the ground is invaluable.” PROTECTING CHILDREN Since 2016, Lucy Tupu , Creative Direc- tor of Lucy Tupu Design Studio , in New York and New Zealand, has part-
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