Korean Intern.
August 2012
I finished the Korean fair trade market analysis and visited two handicrafts producers of fair trade office. One of them was a bag sewer. He had one small
room to work and two tiny rooms for his family. But his life standard was much worse than that now, when he worked in one Korean sewing factory. He was
too low paid and at the end he couldn't get paid, because the fabric went bankrupt. But according to Donald it is a typical strategy of an
entrepreneur, who doesn't want to pay their labors and pretends that he went bankrupt. Anyway he got contact to PREDA by chance and He could start his own
business, making bags with recycled juice packs. He and PREDA decide price of goods together. And he is paid not per day, but per piece. PREDA has offered
materials, sew machines, and also helped his housing. When he doesn't have enough orders, PREDA provides him textiles so that he can make other bags for
local market. But the textiles are not fair produced.
At that moment I felt that capitalism is like a human chain
that all human beings in the world are connected as buyers and producers and what fair trade can do is a kind of intervention. So PREDA struggles to provide people better working condition, but it cannot cover every person of this chain. This situation seems like the fight between David and Goliath. People are slave drived in mass production under the capitalistic rules and PREDA rescue them from it and let them be enough paid and get dignity. One of the widely known notion of Capitalism is the economies of scale. It means that the bigger firm's scale is, the lower the firm's costs. Adam Smith said that division of labour represents a
Qualitative increase in productivity.
Both of these features lead to the form of mass production nowadays. However I doubt this system. Because It let many people just repeat simple activities without any development. The sewer said that he couldn't learn anything about making bags in factory and he learned it by himself. It was a big challenge for him to start his own business as a bag maker. But PREDA helped it, and he is also now satisfied because he is not used as a just one sewer for other large factory. He doesn't want to make a lot of money, but just want to earn enough money for living. The other producer produces pumice stones. It is one project for youth: young
college students make pumice stones as a part time job. But this time we have big first order from one commercial company from USA, so the whole family was
busy to make it. Next day I also helped shipment in fair trade office for that order. I like the working atmosphere in fair trade office that all
coworkers work together when they have a big order.
IP community visit
Indigenous people in Philippines are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Philippines. Up to 15 per cent of the Philippine
population - about ten million people - belong to distinct indigenous communities and retain a close link with their traditions. They avoided
Hispanisation during Spain's 350-year colonization of the Philippines. But these days they are the most discriminated ethnic group in Philippines. The
main problems that Indigenous Peoples face are from large-scale mining that digs up their land, in the construction of large-scale dams that floods their
land, in widespread logging that deforests their land. As they struggle to defend their land, much of it is in areas of forest or mountain that are rich
in natural resources and so conflicts often arise with companies, many of them based outside the Philippines, who want to exploit those resources -
mostly without the consent of the Indigenous Peoples.
On Friday we visited PAPAHT IP community, which is mixed from Aetas, IP group in Zambales and rural people, who came to the place because of Typhoon in
2009. They live on the middle of mountain. But I was pretty shocked because the mountain is so much deforested, which cause landslide. Their situation
was very harsh: They don¹t have electricity, water supply facilities. But several NGO's and local community help them. Especially PREDA provides many
development programs. PREDA builds houses from concrete, offers female goats, plants mango trees, provide human rights seminar, leadership training. They
have even democratical process in making decision. Fortunately mining is banned in their area, but they had legal conflict about the right of
ownership in land. PREDA also helped them in legal process. After leader's orientation we looked around their land, I could feel their hope and see
their efforts for their rights. I was very impressed by their passion.
In the afternoon we went to Maporac IP community and we stayed there for weekend. The place was very peaceful and had special atmosphere with the
smell, smoke from charcoal production and American pop music. I slept in one pastor'shouse. He has wife and four children, but their house is not bigger
than fifteen square meter. I and Johanna slept together on a wood bed, which actually fit for small kid. Next day we got rice, fried meat and Korean chili
sauce for breakfast. We also prepared for children feeding program and on Saturday night we had culture exchange time. Aetas showed their traditional
dances and I taught Korean traditional song. Through that program we could get to know each other more. They don't possess a lot, but they know how to
live together harmoniously and how to band together. I was very impressed by their kindness and their life style.
