Kuba cloth… even the sound of it is softly exotic and feminine… I know for a fact that I’ve mentioned Haba Na Haba before — the term means “little by little fills the pot” which is another way of saying that we can change the world with small actions. Isn’t that comforting?
Anyway, just two days ago they launched a whole new line of home accessories to help women less fortunate than ourselves.
The idea is that, instead of buying things made by poor workers in terrible conditions to the profit of some huge unethical multiinational — well, we’ve all heard the news stories and calls to boycott this or that— we can choose these and other fabulous fair-trade products and change the lives of these poor women, little by little, in doing so.
This new line features traditional new and vintage Kuba ceremonial cloth handwoven by women escaping from the civil war in the Congo, and sold by crossing the border into Tanzania. Haba Na Haba’s manufacturing partner in Tanzania has supported these Congolese women by purchasing the Kuba cloth and honoring them by creating beautiful home décor items.
Not to pound too heard on the charity drum — because, frankly, the 24-inch Kuba cloth pillow just so darned decorative that the do-good aspect is more of a bonus — but the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to the mirco-credit banking pioneer brought this whole “little by little” concept into sharp focus. Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank have done more than many nations could to address the poverty in his native Bangladesh — by loaning tiny amounts of money at low interest rates to many ordinary people, just the little bit they need to help them change their lives and become self-sufficient.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
And that’s why, when I discover another beautiful product that is also a fair trade product, it makes for a very happy day.
Let’s tag this, oh, Home Decor and Fair Trade.