The story of Joey Las Piñas
By: Seunghee Lee
This is the story of Joey Las Pinas, a sewer who has been trading with Profairtrade since 2005, a 41 year old Filipino man born in Mindanao Area. Joey is married and has three children, two girls and one boy who are all attending school. Joey is a tailor by trade and takes part in the Preda Fair Trade initiative producing quality carrying bags from recycled juice foil pouches. Since being in the Preda Fair Trade industry for about 8 years so far, Joey is now running his own small sewing shop. His story is one that involves his experience with Profairtrade and how it has helped him with his day to day life.
Joey was born in rural area of Mindanao, southern province of the Philippines, his parents operated a small tailoring shop when he was young. Joey enjoyed his schooling, but unfortunately due to cost of education he had to stop his pursue of studies at college where he was learning Management , “Eventually, I lost my interests in studying subjects because of economical burdens, instead I thought to prepare job-seeking.”, he said. So he set out for the job market and moved to Cabalan, Olongapo city when SBMA, Subic recruited huge job opening in 1997. He was fortunate from learning sewing skills from his parents that he was able to secure employment working as a sewer at Korean company which was outsourcing sewing company produced various bags.
At this time, he was earning 190 pesos per day only, barely enough for his day to day living. He met his wife as a quality controller at that time, but this employment did not last long as soon after the company went bankrupt in 2003 and Joey was forced to look for work elsewhere. He desperately found another turn for his next employment in small bag manufacturer and had been working there for 3 years from 2003 to 2005. When he encountered fair-trade by Preda at the same time, he was hired in another bag sewing company while trading with Profairtrade. Individual sewer who contracted with Profairtrade is not a relationship to be hired as a employer but a partner who has a partnership with Prefairtrade so Preda even encouraged them to have various buyers and look for better items for them to skill when the amount of order get decreased.
Joey and his wife married in 2000, they have three beautiful children who are following their parents footsteps and getting an education. But like so many families in Philippines the cost of living and education are high. Joey is worried that like him, his children will not be able to complete their education because of schooling expenses. “My oldest daughter is getting 7th grade for the coming year and it needs 23,000 pesos as her school fee per year excluding school supplies. It¹s very expensive to me he sighed. By relying on his limited schooling and trade skills from his parents, Joey has been able to set up a shop from home and do multiple sewing orders. Because he does not have steady orders at times there is no guaranteed income. Joey decided to put his skills to the test and try a different venture.
At first, the idea of collecting recycled plastic, and converting it into various types of carry bags came from Father Shay who is the General Manager of Preda fairtrade.Preda staffers sought some sewers who are able to put their skills into making challenging recycled bags.
“Through acquaintance sewers, I participated the sewers meeting conducted by Preda and I tried to make recycled bags out of juice pouches provided by Preda. While the material is very different to that of clothing material such as fabric or denim which Joey is used too, he found this different venture interesting as not only was he producing a salable product, but he was also assisting in the conservation of the environment. The income he receives from creating carry bags is not enough to support his family, this business venture is one of many that he does from his home.
“Sometimes when getting many orders, I employed another two sewers, other times there is not that many orders so can’t afford to hire any employees.” says Joey. At the beginning, Joey’s bags were made by recycled juice pouches, since 2006 he also has been making bags made out of rice sacks and tarpaulin as to extend variety of items depending on orders.
In 2005-2007 it was peak of order of recycled bags enough to 1000 piece of bags were produced by a sewer per a month. In those days, for instance, the biggest purchase order he received from Preda was 140000 pesos for 13000 bags so he could afford to save some money for starting his own small business which has been running by him so far. As the order from Preda has not being given regularly and been decreasing he started to contract to make bags which are not made with recycled materials with retailers in locally commercial market. He has only one regular buyer in this moment and most of individual clients visit his small sewing shop followed by other’s recommendation and order very small amount of bags.
Fortunately during the start of the school season from January and May, he is given around 1000 pieces of school bags every year and he hires 2 sewers temporarily. It¹s presumed his total income is between 7,000 pesos up to 10,000 pesos on average per month. But he is still suffering the lack of finance, It is commonly needed 200 pesos per day for children for their transport fare and school supplies excluding meals say Joey.
In running this business along with all the other tailoring jobs, Joey encounters often many problems, especially caused by irregular and unexpected small income. “At the beginning, I had too small a workplace and house for 5 family members and from time to time I asked credit for raising money for buying materials to produce bags.
When it comes to commercial sale, he delivers bags to the retail traders in the local market on consignment basis and he collects payments every 15th and 30th day of the month. Preda Fair Trade has different systems to do business with sewers differing from commercial buyers.
“Preda Fair Trade helps me in case of emergencies” says Joey when describing the many benefits of Preda Fair Trade. Like most hard working Filipinos it’s often difficult to ask for help in times of need, but Joey has been grateful for the assistance in times of business and personal hardships. Profairtrade has special saving system which is called “Trust fund” starting since last year to set 3% of individual sewer’s gross order apart in order for them to save money for the future and in case of an emergency.
It was a relief that Joey could get some money from his Trust fund saving when his youngest daughter desperately needed to go to the hospital due to a sudden sickness. Joey was happy that he was eligible for the Preda Fair Trade bonuses which is awarded 5% of total purchase order to individual producer per year, this included valuable seminars given for all the producers who do business with Profairtrade in regards to “Children¹s rights”, “Women’s right” and human rights.
Furthermore Profairtrade provides 30% cash advance for sewers to buy materials in proper time. Also his bonus is very helpful for him to invest his small money shrewdly into buying an house lot in his hometown to build a house for the future when his children finish schooling. He was also able to buy a second hand high-speed sewing machine which is his prized possession to speed his work and valuable to resell someday if he can get a better one.
Because of decreasing and irregular number of orders from buyers Joey can’t rely on Profairtrade only but with the help of Profairtrade he has new customers. The Preda Fair Trade industry is protecting small business like Joey from the unfair competition from the commercial sector. Joey has come from greater poverty to a more prosperous life today,his children are better fed,educated and more secure and have a brighter future thanks to FairTrade and the world shop customers that support Profairtrade. He hopes to one day expand his business in the production of bags from recycled material.end
This article is based the story of Joey Las Pinas interviewed by Seunghee Lee at 12Nov2012 , Catherine, Profairtrade designer assisted to translate and Ted helped in terms of composition of this article.
