It's been a
long week in Manila, hounding the good-natured and competent team at
Rags2Riches with dozens of questions, trying to understand just what it is that
they do, how they do it, and where they want to go. They are young and dynamic,
coming from a variety of backgrounds, educational histories and career paths.
It's a bit mindblowing to be in the company of young people who have already
accomplished so much.
Simply
put, in the upstairs offices the team runs from Reese Fernandez, the president,
through her expanding sales and marketing team, through design, inventory and
operations. Downstairs is the workshop, where bags and pillows from the rags to
Riches Fashion and Living lines are assembled from R2R and indigenous
communities' woven materials. The radio's on (Oh, won't you staaaaay with me? 'Cause you're all I need…).
Half a dozen
sewing machines are humming, zippers glint. A gang of young guys banter as they
assemble with glue and leather. In the garden, a man snips carefully at a
length of cotton knit to create bands for weaving. Each string then has to be
knotted to the next, using a carefully studied technique designed to minimize
the knot and make it invisible in the final weave. Brightly-colored stacks of
woven panels and semi-finished bags grow on floors and tables throughout the
day, excess threads snipped away to make a perfect product.
It's a
family. Really. Everyone knows everyone else's news. At three in the afternoon,
all work stops and a pick-up basketball game starts in the yard.
Even when we
discuss the Rags to Riches commercial strategy, it's family. A formal strategy
document leads off with, "Before we
go deeper into our strategic planning, we should always remember that no matter
what we focus on, our purpose remains the same: lift Filipino Artisans out of
Poverty." Artisans can earn
a living through weaving, but they can also take courses that prepare them,
with hard work, to become full-time artisans in the workshop in the main
office, or R2R Ambassadors, manning one of the two R2R retail outlets in
Manila.
There's also a career path for people like me. This week I became an
official Rags to Riches Advocate, by becoming the happy owner of an R2R buslo,
their fabulous over-the-shoulder basketweave bag. I could get used to this
role. J
