Letters from Renu and the WFN staff . . .

A diary of social work in Nepal . . . January 19, 2008

The Letters from Renu on these pages detail an ongoing saga of abuse. WARNING: these letters have graphic descriptions which may be disturbing. These are stories of real people in terrible trouble. The good news is that there are many individuals who are working to set the world right in Nepal. WFN is one of the groups seeing to it that something is being done to help.

Foreign buyers of Maheela cloth drive hard bargain . . . and we negotiate hard too

Dear Brian,
Namaskar

About the Coop project to sell the silk and pasmina:

Two representative from a coop came to Nepal to place an order for our weaving. They explained how huge they are. They select the silk and Pasmina yarn themselves. They chose the most expensive yarns for their weavings. They talked with producer and every cost was fixed. After that they also set the selling price at Euro 16 per scarf.  If we sold the weavings for Eeuro 16, we would have 0% profit. They saw that but they say no matter about the profit because they already told their various shops that Euro 16 will cover only production cost. If we sell at the production cost we will face a loss. As is alwaus the cae, some scarves will be damaged andr some yarn will also be damaged, so we will face a loss.

We explained the situation to them very well and gave them our solution: 1) We can send them scarves, but we will use 50%/50%, pasmina and silk. ( they wanted 60% pasmina and 40% silk.) 2) We can use medium quality pasmina. Or they have to pay 18 euro per pice. It they pay 18 euro we will have 15% profit.

Many greetings lots of love and respect.
Renu