Bamboo Eco Mug Indigenous Designs

The artisans who contribute to the cross-cultural projects are often rural folk who are also employed in traditional handicraft activities that supplement their rural incomes, filling the financial troughs between harvests, and the lulls in seasonal work.  Handicraft income is derived from skills handed down through generations creating work that is culturally enhancing, and gives strength to traditional ways of life and creativity in quiet, pristine villages, with their extended families.

On both sides of the equation, here in Australia and in the other often remote regions we get our hand crafted goods from, people are enabled to live in their own small communities on traditional homelands.

Handicraft cultures are endangered cultures. This work is being pushed aside by a consumer market that wants cheap, pretty, but highly disposable mass produced products. Our Cross Cultural Projects have longevity, we are still working with the same workers who produced our first order, and always looking for new artisans that we can include into our projects.